Immigrant Experience Dept: And like the thousands who share their immigrant experience, the family s integration into Canadian life hasn t always been easy, according to CBC. Click here for more on our series examining the challenges facing immigrants in York Region and like thousands of immigrants who come to Canada every year, the Thanesh family came to Toronto hoping for a better life. Kiruba Thanesh and her husband who uses Thanesh as both a first and last name left behind good jobs when they departed their native Sri Lanka more than a year ago. Making the move with them were their two sons, aged 13 and nine. Great Expectations (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Deng Xiaoping Dept: In contrast to when Mao systematically tried to destabilize neighbours and spread communism, leadership since Deng Xiaoping has demonstrated a willingness to play according to Western rules. There s still work to be done, especially around intellectual property, cyber espionage and human rights. Yet, for the most part, China has behaved responsibly in the World Trade Organization, G20 and climate-change negotiations , according to Globe and Mail. Our geography, demography and resources give us cards to play. As Mr. Harper has learned, it s never easy dealing with the Middle Kingdom and its sensitivities. By focusing on people-to-people connections, we build trust that will serve our commercial interests and advance our ability to play constructive internationalism, especially in the critical Sino-American relationship and the miracle is not without warts. Social unrest is an abiding preoccupation of the Chinese leadership. The fear, as Mao Zedong put it, is that a single spark can start a prairie fire. Domestic stability is fundamental. This has led to celebrated confrontations with dissidents and over access to information. Canadians have a role to play in ensuring that the international system responds to the changing concert of powers and that China is accorded place, standing and respect in a new order built on peaceful, competitive dynamism. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Vander Zalm Dept: The former judge and former premier -- the respected and honoured jurist Ted Hughes and the charismatic and populist politician William Vander Zalm -- their skin the colour of parchment, their ancient feud still vivid and sanguine, according to Winnipeg Free Press. Like aging boxers in their respective corners, they sat in B.C. Supreme Court facing one final round, one last heavyweight battle over reputation and history, prompted by the 2008 publication of Vander Zalm's self-penned vanity book, William Vander Zalm -- For The People, which sold fewer than 1,500 copies and vANCOUVER -- The old men sat at opposite ends of the front row in the courtroom public gallery, their wives beside them, nine empty seats and a 20-year-old grudge between. Not a glance would pass between the silver-haired paladins, let alone a word. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

President Bashar Assad Dept: NDP foreign affairs critic Helene Laverdiere urged the government to recall the envoy because she said it would send a strong message to Assad, who has waged a bloody 11-month crackdown in his country that has left thousands dead. A Syrian military offensive against people in the city of Homs has entered its third straight day, according to The Chronicle Herald. "It s not a question of cutting diplomatic ties completely," Laverdiere said Monday. "Our position does not go as far as that of the United States." OTTAWA The official Opposition wants Canada s ambassador recalled from Syria, but the government says he will stay in the besieged country to blast President Bashar Assad for his attacks on domestic dissenters. The Obama administration closed the U.S. embassy in Damascus on Monday and recalled all diplomatic staff. Britain recalled its ambassador to Syria and expressed its disgust over the situation. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Quebec Dept: While Canada has progressed into this new century, the law schools have ceased to produce great young scholars of federalism, prime minister-chaired first ministers conferences no longer take place, and a new coterie of politicians has moved to the fore with precious little familiarity with, immersion in, and instinct for the Quebec question and its peculiar nuances, according to Globe and Mail. A combination of scar tissue from past battles and the supposition self-fulfilling or not that the old dances around the Quebec question can only issue in pain for one or more sides have led to an awkward conspiracy of silence in our national political discourse: Everyone knows that the Quebec question exists, and that it has a certain import, but no one wishes to discuss it openly or often. Of course, over time, people forget how to speak about the question altogether and but officials at Westminster in search of good advice from Canada might be surprised indeed, puzzled to find that, some two decades after the deaths of the Meech and Charlottetown accords, no new generation of thinkers, practitioners and stars has yet emerged in Canada to lay claim to sure-footed stewardship of the question that has suffused most key debates over the Canadian project since Confederation. In short, on the Quebec question, there has been no passing of the torch or changing of the guard. In Quebec political circles, the repli sur soi is nearly perfect: The social imaginary abstracts brutally from the idea of a larger Canada. In Ottawa and other Canadian political capitals, professional and personal relationships with the next generation of important Quebec political actors and thinkers are perfunctory at best, and non-existent at worst. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

University Of British Columbia Economist Kevin Milligan Dept: The problem isn t academic, and it isn t going away. Sex selection is practised in both India and China, two of Canada s biggest sources of immigrants. Cheap and portable ultrasound technology is now available everywhere. In Punjab, one of the most prosperous areas of India, the ratio of baby boys to baby girls has reached 120 to 100. A normal birth ratio is 103 to 107, which is nature s way of compensating for the fact that boys mortality is higher, according to Globe and Mail. In Canada, of course, gender-based abortion is completely legal. University of British Columbia economist Kevin Milligan, working with Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund of Columbia University, used census data to determine its patterns among immigrant groups. They published their findings in a 2009 paper, Son Preference and the Persistence of Culture. Although they didn t try to put numbers to their findings, the data clearly show that sex selection is culturally specific and persists into the second generation and overblown or not, Canadians are obviously uneasy about sex-selective abortion. According to a recent Angus Reid poll, 66 per cent of women think there should be laws governing whether a women can abort a fetus solely because of gender. It s unlikely that more education and development will be the answer because, in India, sex selection is more popular among the affluent. Gendercide is also on the rise in China, where the ratio of boys to girls increased to 119 by 2004. In some regions, it s more than 150. Leading demographer Nicholas Eberstadt calls the rising tide of sex selection a global war against baby girls. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Federal Privacy Commissioner Dept: The NDP lodged a complaint with the federal privacy commissioner over the matter Monday, according to The Chronicle Herald. A civil servant wound up drafting six fellow employees to pose as new Canadians when not enough newly naturalized Canadians showed up for the shoot and oTTAWA The personal information of hundreds of new Canadians might have been misused during the planning of a citizenship ceremony televised on the Sun News network, say privacy and immigrant advocates. Bureaucrats at Citizenship and Immigration Canada were directed by minister Jason Kenney s office last fall to organize a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony at the Toronto-based station on short notice. New citizens were to re-take their oath for the show. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Canadian Citizenship Dept: Citizenship as reality television sullies journalists, bureaucrats and the solemnity of Canadian citizenship all at the same time, according to Winnipeg Free Press. Manitoba MP Kevin Lamoureux says many of his constituents have been waiting more than a year for a citizenship ceremony. One wonders how they feel about the fake ceremony and oTTAWA -- When Citizenship and Immigration Canada couldn't pull together a citizenship ceremony for Sun TV last year, they opted to have bureaucrats pose as new Canadians instead. Many people noted just two months ago Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney himself stressed how solemn a citizenship ceremony should be when he barred women from wearing face coverings to the events. Yet his office was complicit in staging a fake citizenship ceremony just to appease a friendly media outlet. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Cindy Tugwell-executive Dept: Repeated delays in redeveloping the St. Charles Hotel have ignited a spat between heritage advocates and the building's owner, according to Winnipeg Free Press. SARAH KEARNEY/ 080513 Cindy Tugwell-executive director of Heritage Winnipeg office 942-2663 cell 990-8976 Doors open heritage appriciation event May 24-25-building tours over the weekend. Story focuses on tour of Red River College campus Princess St . For Ian Tizzard - Site Lines, Sat. May 17 and mike Aporius / A civic committee has denied St. Charles Hotel owner Ken Zaifman s appeal against a city order to install a fire-protection system. RIGHT: Heritage Winnipeg executive director Cindy Tugwell says he s had plenty of time to redevelop the old inn. Ken Zaifman, an immigration lawyer, has been working on a plan to redevelop the property on Notre Dame Avenue as a boutique hotel since 2008. Enlarge Image (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

James Moore Dept: It would be nice to think that they all knew the back-story to the triumph they were gathered to celebrate. Given the country s enduring cultural silos, that s highly unlikely, according to The Star. Over the past three decades, a lot of threads have gone in the making of the red carpets that the production teams and casts of Quebec-made films so routinely march upon these days and mONTREAL Hundreds of real and lesser VIPs including a string of cabinet ministers and MPs converged on the Ottawa s National Arts Centre at the invitation of federal heritage minister James Moore Monday night for a special screening of Monsieur Lazhar , Canada s 2012 Oscar nominee for best foreign film. It s the second year in a row that a Quebec movie puts Canada s name on the Oscar short list. That s anything but a fluke. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.