Snapshots of the Persian Pages

View — 11 آوریل 2012

Paria, a house for all Iranians

Majid Bastami’s interviewed Ahmad Reza Tabrizi, the head and founder of Parya Trillium Foundation which is the biggest Iranian Community Center in Canada and the gathering place of thousands of Iranians living in Toronto and York, about the underlying reasons, philosophy, and the process of the formation of this institution. They also discussed the services provided for the elderly, the youth, families, and newcomers, as well as the programs intended to promote and improve the services in the future. (Cover Issue)

Ethical and political heritage of “politics without principle”

A Canadian government that is slowly resembling the Middle East!

Majid Bastami

The conservatives seem to be really enjoyed when they have been continually creating a vast number of opponents, for whole the February and March time periods. These are just a few parts of the menu served for the Canadian citizens: giving more unlimited and uncontrolled authority to the police for accessing the Internet users’ contact information with the pretext of fighting against pornographic child abuse in an attempt to suppress any objections through the friend/foe two-pole in this phrase Canadians “can either stand with the government, or with child pornographers”, legalizing the acceptance of the result of confessions under torture, scandalous show on SunNews network, and putting pressure on the labor syndicates in Air Canada not to use their legal rights before any serious negotiations initiate between them and the employers. In many of these cases, the public mind could become more effectively convinced with merely a change of tone and by allowing the issues to be brought up in the media quietly and based on facts. However, they have decided to choose the Middle Eastern leadership common method! As of now, the conservatives insist that they have absolute power, despite only having the support of 38 percent of Canadians. This is only in place however, as long as the Robocall scandal does not return them to a status of minority.

Fraud in Canadian parliamentary elections!?

Conservatives have been accused of breaking the law and deceiving the voters

Ali Sharifian

Since late February, a big political controversy has been set up after the opposition parties accused the conservative government of vast and engineered fraud in election. These accusations are getting more and more serious. The leaders and representatives of the opposition accused the conservatives of having won the parliamentary election, which was held on the second day of the last month, with fraud and illegal actions in about fifty electoral centers. These accusations have not yet been proven.

World Wars and the acceptance of immigrants by Canada

The effects of economic crises between the two World Wars and the formation of ethnical centers in cities

Vahid Namazi, PhD.

In the years between the two world wars, many factors such as drought, economic crisis, exerting strict limitations on the immigrants from the so-called hostile countries, dividing the countries, and the creation of more severe limitations on the second groups could not even discourage people from immigrating to cities. As a result, since different groups of immigrants with different levels of knowledge and experience are encouraged to go to the cities, ethnic centers are gradually formed in big cities. Moreover, when the World War II came to an end, new international conditions were created and the Geneva Convention about the recognition of the refugees’ rights was signed. There was no room for continuing the discriminative policies towards admitting immigrants, and the reform changes gradually started.

Hard budget time at Queens Park

The budget of Ontario and political twists

Farahnaz Samiee, Majdi Bastami

On March 29, the government of Ontario will publicly announce the 2012 budget bill, the bill which has gained controversial attention over the past couple weeks following the publication of Don Drummond’s report, who is an economist and former president of “Canada Trust”. This 665-page report, which was developed by a board of four people and chaired by Drummond, was ordered by the liberal government of the province. 362 proposals were presented to the government of Ontario and chaired by Dalton McGuinty. Drummond had previously warned that not paying attention to these proposals can lead Ontario to have a budget deficit of 30 billion dollars during the 2017-2018 years, as well as cause the amount of debt of Ontario to increase from the current amount of 215 billion dollars to 411 billion dollars. Because of this, some people think that these proposals are a form of political suicide for liberals.

The sensitivity of the lawyers towards the actions of the Sydney office

Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association pursues irrational rejection of files in CIO

Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association, one of the most powerful legal institutions in Quebec, has had a committee of experienced immigration lawyers in charge of investigating the actions of the Canadian immigration office in Sydney called CIO. These investigations focus on the irrational rejection of the files of applicants who could not provide proof regarding their work experience. This is particularly the case for physicians, dentists, chemists, and recently, biologists. The lawyers of this association represent applicants from all over the world. Although the Sydney office has treated such applicants for a long time, the lawyers have not been as sensitive to this behavior for each of them has encountered only a few of such cases. One of the members of the committee contacted Canpars and presented a detailed report about such rejections in Iranian files; thus, they endeavor to challenge the immigration office about this issue.

Nowruz in Montreal

Special programs for Nowruz in Montreal Iranian Community

Neshat Tehrani

These days, Iranians are busy getting ready for the New Year. They are preparing themselves for the holidays, New Year visits, or vacations and journeys. On this side of the globe however, Nowruz is somewhat different for those Iranians who have immigrated abroad. New Years in Iran is usually celebrated within families, but here, there is usually no time for long vacations nor enough time for New Year visits. Nevertheless, the Iranians living abroad have tailored Nowruz celebrations to their lifestyle in one way or another. They hold the gatherings and public ceremonies on the weekend and bring the Nowruz atmosphere to their homes.

Fortunately for this year, the weather is nice and Iranians living in Montreal are able to see the signs of a pleasant and warm spring. It didn’t snow much this year and Nowruz bazaars and celebrations are being held all over. Almost every weekend and even on the weekdays, from Charshanbeh Soori to New Year celebrations and Sizdah Bedar, many ceremonies will be held thanks to Iranian cultural associations and activists in Montreal.

The story of “A Separation” which leads to reunion

And the Oscar goes to….”A Separation”

“Hello to the good people of my homeland”. 83 Oscar ceremonies were held before this Persian phrase was heard by Iranians in a memorable evening on February 26, 2012, in the 84th Oscar ceremony. Millions of people from all over the world, including many Iranians, were watching the program live until Sandra Bullock introduced the winner out of 5 films, which managed to enter the final phase of the award for the best foreign language film. The final phrase “And the Oscar goes to….”A Separation”” left many Iranians with a strong sense of cultural pride and esteem.

“Practice Firms” and Canadian experience for newcomers

A way to get familiar with a Canadian work environment

Mohammad Ali Shakarami

Having work experience in a Canadian work environment as one of the disruptive compulsory prerequisites required by employers to recruit immigrants can be partly tackled by taking a 12-week course in one of many virtual apprenticeship companies, called Practice Firm (under the supervision of Job Skills). These courses, sponsored by the Canadian government, are designed to make newcomers familiar with the work environment and culture of the new country and prepare them to enter the labor market. The courses are among the most effective programs in this regard.

In Practice Firms, the applicants will have the opportunity to work in a Canadian work environment, i.e. in a virtual company with all the required departments found in a real company and will develop the necessary skills in their fields of work tailored for the Canadian work environment through attending many educational workshops.

One of the drawbacks of PF is the limitation of the numbers of the existing jobs. The courses are designed in such a way that they are not suitable for, for example, some technical fields and thus, no jobs are able to be considered for them. Currently, about 20 jobs in the fields of finance and accounting, customer services, human resources, sales and marketing, purchasing and procurement, Information Technology and website design are presented in PF and the participants will work in these fields after being interviewed and having passed the related exams.

Cisco and its certificates

Mehdi Dabirzadeh

Cisco is an international American company headquartered in San Jose, California. Its business focuses on the design and sale of parts applicable in electronics, network, telecommunications and underlying services. Based on 2010 statistics, the company has 70,000 employees and its annual income has been around 40 billion dollars.

Cisco was founded in 1984 and entered the stock exchange market in 1990. Its first product was the router. It was not until the only company manufacturing this product however, that it became the first company to manufacture good routers supporting several protocols.