Please sign and share: https://www.change.org/p/urgent-bring-at-risk-father-and-young-daughters-8-and-12-home-to-canada

We are calling on Ottawa to issue Temporary Resident Permits so the two girls (Amaika, 8, and Rosena,12) can get on a repatriation flight with their Canadian father, Sebastien, whose health is very fragile (but who won't leave his daughters on their own in a country where they have no one else to care for them). The Canadian government has said Sebastien can come home but NOT his two adopted daughters. Keep this family together, bring them back to their anxiously waiting mother in B.C.!

The Covid-19 situation in Haiti is deteriorating rapidly. One of the girls’ favourite teachers in Jacmel has died of Covid-19. A Covid-19 clinic has been burned to the ground.

Despite almost two months of desperate pleas to reunite the family, intensive lobbying, and the extensive submission of application materials to allow these two girls and their adoptive father to come back to Canada from Haiti, the federal government is continuing to place all three lives at risk by failing to do the right thing.

They need your support now to prevent a tragedy. Please sign and share. https://www.change.org/p/urgent-bring-at-risk-father-and-young-daughters-8-and-12-home-to-canada

Thanks!

Matthew Behrens, Rural Refugee Support Network

PS: Learn more with this Toronto Star article: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/05/20/canadian-senior-struggles-to-care-for-foster-daughters-in-haiti-amid-covid-19.html

PPS: You can also send a letter and make a phone call:

Sample email
Subject Line: Please Issue Temporary Resident Permits to Rosena Luz Saint Louis, aged 12, and Amaika Clairazur Celestin, aged 8

To: IRCC.Minister-Ministre.IRCC@cic.gc.ca, Marco.Mendicino@parl.gc.ca

Cc: Francois-Philippe.Champagne@parl.gc.ca, Soraya.MartinezFerrada@parl.gc.ca, tasc@web.ca, ps.ministerofpublicsafety-ministredelasecuritepublique.sp@canada.ca

Dear Minister Mendicino,
I am writing to demand that you exercise your power under Section 25.1 (1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Humanitarian and compassionate considerations) to issue Temporary Resident Permits to Rosena Luz Saint Louis, aged 12, and Amaika Clairazur Celestin, aged 8, of Jacmel, Haiti, so they can accompany their fragile father Sebastien De Marre home to Canada and be reunited with their mother, Marie-Paule.

As you likely know from the news, the situation in Haiti – the country in the Americas least able to handle the pandemic – is deteriorating rapidly. All family members are at grave risk. Testing and tracing is almost non-existent, and health clinics are being attacked. One of the girls' school teachers has died from the virus.

Your office has issued similar permits to other Canadian parents, allowing them to bring adopted Haitian kids to Canada. The children’s application for permits – with all the necessary supporting documents that show what a loving, strong family they are – was sent to your office April 24, 2020. The family has been trying to resolve this matter since the beginning of April.

There is nothing complicated in this request. You can issue a permit immediately. Failure to do so will have tragic consequences. Should Sebastien succumb to COVID-19, the girls will be left abandoned in a country where they are ripe for sexual exploitation. This is unacceptable and easily preventable.

(Feel free to add in a personal statement at the end—ie, “As a parent, I cannot imagine the impossible choice before Sebastien right now” or “People’s lives should not be at risk because of bureaucratic paperwork issues”, etc.

Your Name
Address

Call Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino at 613-992-6361, 416-781-5583
Sample phone message (leave one if you get the answering machine)
Hi, my name is XXXXX and I'm calling from TOWN, PROVINCE. I’m calling to support Sebastien De Marre and his two daughters, Rosena and Amaika. The girls need Temporary Resident Permits immediately to escape Haiti, where the COVID-19 virus is spreading rapidly and threatening all of them. Please issue the permits today so they can get on a plane with their dad and be reunited with their mom in Canada. It's the right thing to do. Thank you."