Notes from a Fiery Nest

Don't worry, it's fine!

ironphoenix — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 03:17:24 GMT

I had an appointment with my optometrist recently. A little while back, someone drove into their front window, and things aren't repaired fully yet.

The instructions for coming to the appointment: You'll get to a boarded-up storefront. Go around to the back. At exactly 10:30, come to the back door and knock. Wear a mask, and come alone.

Me: 🤔 Sounds legit! This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/277794.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Rare thing! Update!

ironphoenix — Sun, 10 May 2020 02:55:29 GMT

I miss people, I miss activities. I'm glad I have my partners in person, at least... otherwise, sanity would be not-great. As it is, we're making the most of the extra time together.

I'm working from home, which is... ok, better than not working, but not my favorite way to be.

I considered going back to playing keyboards during The Isolation, but I realized that I would drop it once aikido and gaming meetups got going again, so it's hart to justify the expense. A friend mentioned the Roli controllers, which look like a lot of fun to me. Someday, maybe... hopefully not too soon if it's because I can no longer do aikido!

I have managed to shift a little bit of my gaming online: we've played a bit of 1830 via Board18, and my biweekly RPG has moved online reasonably effectively, just as we were starting a new arc. It's not the same, but it's something.

For walks, we've been avoiding parks during the worst of the isolation policing, and going mostly to outlying crown lands and the like. It's still a big country out there, with a lot of nowhere in particular.

Hopefully, y'all are staying healthy and somewhat sane! This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/277705.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Brief update

ironphoenix — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 02:48:49 GMT

Busy, but wanted to get this out there. I didn't even post my most recent reflection here, but I hope to remedy that soon.

Work news: I was promoted to team lead in January, and folks here seem to like what I do and how I do it, which is a step up over the Powers That Be at my old place.

Family news: my father passed away on Sunday morning, succumbing after a long decline to dementia; the funeral is on Friday. Mixed, fairly intense emotions, as you can imagine.

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Reflection from a couple of weeks ago

ironphoenix — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 11:37:48 GMT

Reflection for 22-23 September 2018
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Text: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; Psalm 54:3-4, 5, 6, 8; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37.

Jesus places a child amid the disciples. When I was preparing this reflection last month, it was hard for me to read this, as just last month we were confronted with yet another report of clerical abuse of children and an organized cover-up in our church. Father Richard’s and Pope Francis’ letters printed in last month’s New Spirit call us to root out clericalism in ourselves and in our institution, since it is a key element of what let this evil go unexposed and unaddressed for so long.

Clericalism, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a policy of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious hierarchy.”² It’s not a new phenomenon, nor is it unique to our faith community. We put people onto pedestals so easily, but Holy Orders, like every other Sacrament, is no guarantee against sin. Like engineers like myself, doctors, politicians, executives, spouses, and parents, priests and bishops are human, and fallible.

There’s a difference between aspirations and expectations. We all hope not to make mistakes, but when we expect perfection, and make our love and respect conditional on it, we set the stage for deceit. When we accept the pedestal of those expectations, we find ourselves tempted to hide our failings so as not to lose that respect and be shunned as inadequate by the disappointed admirers. This is the trap from which we, as a faith community, have to extricate ourselves.

The disciples argued over who among them was the greatest. Jesus doesn’t tell them not to want to be great, but tells them—twice—what it entails. It doesn’t mean accepting the place of honor and being lauded by all. Before they set out, he tells them what he, as their leader and teacher, will do as the greatest of us all: he will accept death, in a way that seems to throw aside his personal honor. They don’t understand, of course, so he tells them again: the child he puts among them is, in their society, a person of no consequence, from whom they stand to gain no honor or advantage. Welcoming the child is a recognition of the equality of us all, and a sign of the all-embracing love of God. Honor and status in human society creates divisions between those on the pedestal and those who are to look up to them; Jesus comes to make us one. Jesus wants us all to be the greatest givers and receivers of love we can possibly be.

When we realize that love—God’s and ours—is not a scarce resource we have to fight over, but an abundance that multiplies like grain planted, harvested, and planted again, we can begin to let go of the fear of being rejected. Perhaps the ungodly in the first reading want to bring down the righteous person because they fear that so long as anyone is better than they are, they will be condemned, and it seems so far to go to become good. If only our lives could show that it’s not a contest, and that whatever they have done, they can do the right thing in their next breath and be reborn into God if they choose. Whatever we have done, if we turn to God and ask humbly for blessings for the sake of love of all, God will answer.

When we create a culture of openness, of forgiveness, of reparation, of reconciliation, the consequences of our human failings are not erased, but are mitigated and eventually subsumed in loving relationships. It’s not painless: part of that openness is to understand and recognize our participation both as enablers and as victims of the violations of trust and perversions of love that our community has perpetrated and allowed to continue for years.

We are all the disciples; we are all the child Jesus places among them. Let’s neither become too attached to our privileges nor too fearful of our vulnerabilities, but welcome and accept welcome from each other. When we stop focusing on worldly power and status, and give to God “the kingdom, and the power, and the glory … for ever and ever,”² we become little windows through which the light of God’s kingdom comes into this world. Jesus’s death was the ultimate version of this: rising from the dead as he promised, he showed that God’s kingdom is of a different and greater kind than human ones, founded on the universal and eternal love which inspired creation itself.

1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clericalism, accessed 22 Sept. 2018.
2. Coda to the Lord’s Prayer

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Summer camps

ironphoenix — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 18:43:33 GMT

Near where I work, there are ads on lawn signs for various summer camps, including things like "Detective Camp," "Lego Camp," "Science Camp," and "Back to School Camp."

Back to School Camp? Really? I guess this is what parents threaten their kids with if they don't get good grades. Kind of like Krampus for summer vacation!

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New car soon

ironphoenix — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 23:37:39 GMT

We're getting a new car soon... the old Mazda 3 is near on 310,000 km, so it's about time. So, we're selling it to a guy for not-a-huge-amount-of-money, but still more than the trade-in value, and buying a new Mazda 3.

This will probably be our last gasoline-powered car, as I read the technology curve!

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Reflection on the Ascension

ironphoenix — Tue, 15 May 2018 00:18:52 GMT

Reflection for 12-13 May 2018
The Ascension of the Lord, Year B
Text: Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 4:1-13, Mark 16:15-20.

When Jesus tells us to believe in him, he isn’t talking about an intellectual proposition, but about our choice to live in accordance with his teaching: faith is an act of will. Jesus’ teaching is not only his words, but his life, and it is the unfolding and realization of love.

Love, the way Jesus lives it, isn’t just a feeling, but is a way of action. Love leads to the cross, because the way of love is so often opposed to the way of the world. The Beatitudes stand in stark opposition to worldly techniques for getting ahead in life. Blessed are those who mourn? Blessed are the meek? Blessed are the pure in heart? Blessed, but not usually “successful” according to the measures of wealth, popularity, and power.

The signs Jesus tells us will accompany those who love are the very acts in which we, at our best, put that love into practice. As the Second Reading puts it, we should “live … with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love.” Have you consoled someone in the depths of misery? You have driven out a demon in Jesus’ name. Have you been arguing with someone and, by listening, come to see things in a new way and been reconciled with that person? You have spoken in a new tongue. Dealt justly and kindly with people, even when they do not do the same for you? You have picked up serpents. These are not easy things to do, and I remember many times when I have had the opportunity, but have failed to act with the love I could have.

From the vantage of the world, it is not safe to love like that; Jesus died for it, scorned and abandoned by the people he loved. His resurrection, however, shows that death doesn’t matter, that its power is beneath that of love. Whatever harm we sustain because of love, we will be resurrected as Jesus was, and so whatever deadly thing we may have to drink, it will not harm what is most essential in us. The integrity to accept this even into death is a great gift of faith. The stigmata in Christ’s resurrected body show that death and evil, though real, are not as real as the love that is God.

Today, Jesus’ Ascension continues that story: the Kingdom of Heaven and our world are connected in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit he promises and sends to all of us. It is the sign of what we hope to fulfill when we pray as Jesus taught: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” When we, inflamed by that Holy Spirit, live with such love, we draw others into it and they live it too, just as at the Easter Vigil, from a few candles lit from the Paschal Candle, we passed the flame to one another until every candle was lit. We pray for the fulfillment of our collective mission, when every being is filled with the Spirit and drawn into God’s Kingdom. When that is complete, Jesus’ promised return will be the sign of the unification of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus is at our Father’s right hand, but he is also still here in each of us, to love and be loved in ourselves and each other. When our part of this Earthly mission is done, we hope to be, like Jesus, drawn home into the endless depths of God’s eternal, unifying love.

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From the office

ironphoenix — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 16:26:32 GMT

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Hardware vulnerabilities

ironphoenix — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 16:05:03 GMT

"Child," said Aslan, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?"
--C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawntreader

Apparently, not always so. The Meltdown and Spectre attacks are interesting and clever exploits of speculative execution, a trick we are using to execute programs more quickly.

An internet-connected device isn't like a house: it has to be a fortress, because it is much harder to prosecute attackers, due to the relatively high anonymity and jurisdiction-crossing freedom of online attacks.

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Travel, interrupted

ironphoenix — Sat, 30 Dec 2017 21:24:13 GMT

We went down to Virginia to visit diaspora's parents this Christmas. The stay was relatively uneventful, it was good to see folks again and get a break from Ottawa winter, all about as you'd expect.

On the way back, though, we ran into a traffic jam along I-95 around Stafford VA. A couple of cop cars went by on the shoulders, so we figured there would be a delay because of an accident, par for the course, no biggie. A few more cop cars went by, which was a bit weird, but you know, maybe just an overreaction or something.

Then we drove past an accident where it looked like a simple rear-ending, pulled off on the left, with a couple of police cars, and things opened up for a bit, although I suspected that that was a secondary accident caused by an inattentive driver.

Sure enough, traffic jammed up again, and yet more police zoomed by, driving down the paved shoulders at speed with sirens going.

A helicopter hovered in the sky over the highway ahead, and stayed there.

Traffic came to a standstill. Police cars just kept coming. A couple of fire vehicles and one ambulance went by. Still more police, including an investigation unit truck.

We were completely stopped for about an hour and a half. Cars started turning back and driving back down the shoulders. Eventually, a state trooper came and told us to do the same, and then we were directed to cross over to the other side and redirected down a country highway (US-1, the Jefferson Davis Highway).

The country highway was crawling, unable to cope with the huge volume of traffic. We stopped for lunch and gas after another hour and a half, and heard that not just an accident, but a shooting was involved in whatever incident was delaying us.

After lunch, I asked a trooper directing traffic, and he said that the highway was reopened, so we escaped the rest of the detour crawling down US-1. If he hadn't said that, we might well have turned back, because the detour looked like hours more.

We went back to the Interstate, which itself took about twenty minutes, and once there, waited about fifteen minutes more for traffic to start flowing again. A little ways down the road, we drove by the investigations unit truck and a few police cars, and there was spill absorbent scattered across the highway.

We only found out the rest of the story the next morning, because by the time we got back to Ottawa, it was about 4 a.m., about four and a half hours after our expected arrival time.

Googling the news, it looks like a man shot his wife and then led the police on a chase onto I-95, in the course of which he tried to shoot at police. The minor accident we passed first seems to have been a result of one such attempt, where the officer ducked just in time: the bullet was retrieved from the driver's headrest. Eventually, the fugitive hit a guardrail and rolled his SUV, and shot himself. He was taken to hospital by helicopter, but died there.

The police handled the whole thing very well, as best I can tell. No police fired weapons, despite the fact that this person was shooting at them. Only the man's wife and he were killed or seriously injured, and they even tried everything they could to save him. Police don't always live up to their mission--none of us do--but their handling of this incident was a pretty good example of how they can maintain lawfulness even under extreme circumstances.

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Rockets!

ironphoenix — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 13:16:47 GMT

I concocted a cocktail last night which tastes remarkably like Rockets candy; this was unexpected, but not a bad thing. Here's the recipe...

5 parts Beefeater 24 gin
4 parts Southern Comfort
1 part Galliano
several drops DSB Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

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Progress!

ironphoenix — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 19:24:39 GMT

Physio for my arm seems to be working well; the nerve test is this Friday, and hopefully it will show that things are okay, so I have hopes of going back to aikido classes next week.

My new boss has started, and I am gradually handing over the reins of various management-y things. We get along well; I hope that she will steer a safe path through the political challenges of being the hardware manager in an increasingly software-oriented group.

Despite the often wet weather, diaspora and I have been getting out for a few walks, looking at assorted birds and other things, and generally enjoying outdoor time together. This year, we discovered and explored the High Lonesome Nature Preserve, where we pretty much never encounter anyone else except occasionally around the entrance. It's a very nice trail system, although there are a couple of wet bits (at least this year), but the mosquitoes were heavy during the summer.

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Ouch.

ironphoenix — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 20:12:14 GMT

I've been off the mats, away from martial arts, for a month, due to what we're pretty sure is a pinched nerve in my arm. It's not doing great things for my sanity to be away from aikido in particular, but at least the weather has been good enough for me to spend some time outdoors.

Physiotherapy is in progress, and sometime next month I should get a nerve conduction test; hopefully, I will be free to go back to practice before too long.

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This weekend's reflection

ironphoenix — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 22:08:32 GMT

Reflection for 19-20 August 2017
Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
Text: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28.

Jesus is focussed on his own people, and plays on the common Jewish epithet for other Semitic peoples, referring to the woman as a lap-dog or a puppy and dismissing her. In any language, calling someone any kind of dog is pretty insulting. She not only persists, but becomes the only person in the Gospels to win a battle of wits with Jesus, simultaneously refuting Jesus’ dismissal and humbling herself before him; Jesus is compelled by honor to help her if he can—and he does, with joy. This may even be a turning point in his own life and ministry.

Sickness is a terrible thing; when I or someone I love is really sick, it becomes a focus, and I’ll do anything I can do to help. That focus is what Jesus is looking for in everyone who comes to him, and although it often begins in bodily adversity, it can be sublimated and reach beyond suffering to God. The Canaanite woman bets all her honor on Jesus healing her daughter; if he doesn’t, she will be as good as outcast by her people for having foolishly and uselessly abased herself to this Jewish foreigner. Her daughter’s illness has brought her to where everything else she could lose doesn’t matter anymore, and there she finds God.

This reminds me of several other Gospel passages: of the parable of the man who found out about a treasure buried in a field, and sold everything he had so that he could buy that field;¹ of the widow who donated her only two tiny coins at the Temple;² and of the man born blind, who held to the truth even though his society and his family turned against him for it.³ That’s commitment.

Imagine for a moment someone never baptized coming here looking for God but even with our invitations, too timid to come up to receive the Eucharist, spotting an unnoticed crumb dropped during Communion and snatching it from the floor. We can argue about theology, but I think God will not forget that person’s faith. As Paul writes of the Jews, I would be shamed by such faith.

Usually, I find myself instead like the rich man, who has followed the commandments, but still feels that something more is needed. When Jesus tells him that he has to give up everything and follow him, he is too comfortable in his wealth to let go of it and dedicate himself fully to God.⁴ So many things seem indispensable, but Jesus tells us to pray simply, “Give us this day our daily bread.”⁵ Letting go of the apparent safety of honor, wealth, and power is hard, but only God, only the treasure hidden in the field, will really endure.

The Beatitudes⁶ describe this link between suffering and holiness. It’s not the suffering itself that’s holy; God wants joy and happiness for us, not pain. Affliction, though, can shake our complacency in the world, and distract us from our distractions. The risk, of course, is that our pain absorbs all our attention, and we can’t see God through it. The Canaanite woman is a model of this balance.

Two thieves were crucified with Jesus, and in their agony, called out to Jesus in different ways. The first saw only the suffering and demanded that Jesus take them down from the crosses, but the second saw beyond, and trusted that Jesus, even crucified and obviously not coming down from his own cross, still mattered, praying “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”⁷

When we pray at the Offertory that God accept the offering of “our very selves, open to [God’s] will,” are we willing to step beyond safety and stake everything on receiving even the scraps that fall from the Master’s table? I hope that we will mean it even a little more today than yesterday when we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”⁸

1: Matthew 13:44
2: Mark 12:41-44
3: John 9:1-12
4: Matthew 19:16-24
5: Matthew 6:11
6: Matthew 5:3-12
7: Luke 23:39-43
8: Matthew 6:10

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Smartphone, dumbperson?

ironphoenix — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 17:18:14 GMT

A recent study demonstrates that having a smartphone within one's sphere of awareness is distracting, reducing one's ability to concentrate effectively. From the Discussion section of Experiment 1 (p. 146):

[T]hese results suggest that the mere presence of one’s smartphone may reduce available cognitive capacity and impair cognitive functioning, even when consumers are successful at remaining focused on the task at hand.

It seems that it is best to leave the phone out of sight, and preferably even in another room, when doing anything which requires intensive thinking.

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Last weekend's reflection

ironphoenix — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:18:50 GMT

Reflection for 24-25 June 2017
Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
Text: Jeremiah 20:10-13, Romans 5:12-15, Matthew 10:26-33.

Jesus tells us that not a sparrow falls without God’s knowledge and care, and that we are worth more than many sparrows; yet he also tells us to fear the one who can destroy both body and soul, and warns us that whoever denies him, he will deny before God. This whole chapter of Matthew is filled with this alternation of warning and reassurance; it gives us a glimpse of the mystery and awesomeness of God, whose love for us is boundless, but whose face we cannot see and live.

Remember: Jesus was talking to those who knew him best, the Twelve Apostles, when he was sending them out to minister to the Israelites in his name. His words were to be understood in the context of their relationship. We too have to understand this through our baptismal relationship with God in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is reminding his closest followers, and hopefully us, of lived experience of God’s power, God’s love, God’s forgiveness.

Earlier in the chapter, Jesus warns his disciples that like Jeremiah, they will be rejected and persecuted, but here he tells them and us to speak boldly the truth that is in them, to hide nothing. That sounds easy to many of us, perhaps: our society still largely respects the profession of Christian faith, although some of its implications can be socially uncomfortable. For example, if we call into question the capitalist values of wealth, the virtue of increasing consumption leading to economic growth, the rationality of paying only for what benefits oneself, or the externalization of costs, which leads to the exploitation and destruction of every good thing we hold in common, we may find ourselves a little less popular in some circles. Even so, we are unlikely to be kicked out of town, thrown to the lions, or even subjected to a remarkable number of “random” security checks at airports for declaring our faith.

The truth God has placed in us isn’t just a matter of religious principles and beliefs, though. Our identity, our being, is God’s gift to us, and letting that be seen is always risky. We judge each other by our own standards, and reject each other so easily. One is too poor, another too gay, a third, too pious; this one too fat, that one too promiscuous… there’s no end to the list. In even a small city like ours, it is an incredible amount of work to open ourselves even a little bit to each of the hundreds of people we pass every day, and risk rejection by being seen as something more than anonymous pedestrian number 348. And yet, Jesus invites us to be present to each other, to love one another as he loved us, to notice the individual and love them, and allow them to love us. Do not be afraid of the world’s rejection, he tells us, because he is with us and will bring us to God.

But what of God’s fearsome judgment? It’s pretty hard to be open and loving with the destruction of body and soul in Hell on my mind. “Be nice, or else!” sounds a lot like “Do as I say, not as I do,” so maybe Jesus meant something a little different. My reading of this is that when Jesus says that he will deny one who denies him, he means that God has given us the freedom to reject him, and God will not withdraw it. It’s a matter of immense pain to God, who loves every bit of us, whether we have hair on our heads or not, to lose one person; there is great rejoicing in heaven, Jesus tells us, when a single sinner repents. Whenever we turn towards God, however far away we think we have walked with our backs turned, God is right there, and a single step takes us into God’s arms. Until we do, we add pain; our own, other people’s, and God’s; when we return to God, repentance may be hard too, as we address the truths we may have long denied, but it is a healing suffering, and can lead to lasting reconciliation.

Jesus knew that Peter would deny him three times on the very night that Peter swore his unswerving loyalty, and knew the pain of that rejection, yet loved and loves Peter anyway. I pray it is so for each of us: that even when we don’t fulfill Jesus’ call to live in the light, God remains steadfast and looks forward to our choice to return to God’s all-embracing and individual, tender love.

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Good to be back

ironphoenix — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 20:32:50 GMT

After a hiatus of a few weeks, I'm back to my martial arts practices. The break was enjoyable in some ways, but it's good to see everyone and catch up, to move that way again, and to experience (and contribute to) the energizing effects of the space and practice.

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Phishing warning (yes, another one)

ironphoenix — Thu, 04 May 2017 13:30:14 GMT

Google Docs shares may not be what they seem; exercise caution, and if you have gotten caught, revoke permissions to the fake app and change your password ASAP.

Telegraph article

Wired article

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Phishing warning

ironphoenix — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 15:23:09 GMT

There is a unicode hack which can make a link look like a trusted site while actually sending you to a phishing site in Chrome or FireFox. Actions to fix this are described in the article.

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Leather jackets?

ironphoenix — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:56:26 GMT

Since Danier has closed all but 4 stores, where does one go to get a good leather jacket in Ottawa? Recommendations?

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Pictures of the flood

ironphoenix — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 13:55:42 GMT

Pictures from the flood mentioned in my previous post; cellphone camera, click to biggify.

The sign is a warning of possible standing water on road in spring or after heavy rains.

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Halloooo DreamWidth!

ironphoenix — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 18:39:15 GMT

It's great to be here tonight, folks! Or at least, that's what two-thirds of LJ's userbase seems to think right now!

This should still crosspost there; I'll keep my LJ alive for a while, but I've ended my automatic paid account renewal.

In other news, I had hoped to get to Quebec City for a martial arts seminar (aikido and iaido), but got hit last week by the flu that's going around town. I spent the weekend in town with family instead.

diaspora and I got out to the Cobbs's Creek and Bearbrook Creek spring floods yesterday, where we saw more water than we usually would, and consequentially fewer geese. We did still see a decent number of Canada and Snow Geese, and quite a few Pintail Ducks. We also saw more muskrats than I've seen in one place before, including some young ones--very cute.

The water was high because of recent intense rains, which flooded not only the creeks, but our basement, via the window. Fortunately, the main casualties were empty boxes, which went out with recycling this morning. We'll have to get the back yard regraded, as the root cause of the flooding is subsidence of the ground around the foundation. We'll probably recaulk the window too, and get some insulation replaced to head off any mold issues.

Yes, I'm trying to be a bit more vocal on here... maybe we can get some energy back into a decent social platform!

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Welp, that's a thing.

ironphoenix — Sat, 08 Apr 2017 15:21:13 GMT

This may be my last direct post on LJ: I'm importing everything over to DreamWidth and will figure out how to crosspost from there. It's been a long time, I created this account in 2004. When DW got started, I reserved my username, but didn't really do much else with it, but I'm glad I did that much!

Given the recent ToS changes here, the flock is moving, and social media is all about the flock. Interestingly, the ToS update stated that it did not apply to paid accounts, but it didn't say what the status of paid accounts is.

Company news

ironphoenix — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 22:27:53 GMT

Export Development Canada (EDC) prepared a video featuring the company I work for; check it out (under 4 mins). No CGI, all real footage at a volcano where we actually have instruments deployed.

In related news, we're hiring; see our careers page. If you're interested, let me know, and I can forward your resume; as at many companies, there is a referral bonus, and I'm the sharing kind.

Helping refugees

ironphoenix — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 17:31:52 GMT

Fellow Canadians, please join me in signing Petition e-800 (link is to Parliament petition website). This petition is to remove a regulation which would prevent Canada from considering refugee applicants refused by the USA. Until recently, this regulation was useful in preventing abuse of the refugee applicant system, but the current US President has violated the treaties which underpin the Canada-US Agreement on which this policy was based.