Marc Montgomery, Lynn Desjardins, Carmel Kilkenny, Leo Gimeno

The LINK Online, June 22-23-24, 2018

Your hosts Carmel, Lynn, Leo Gimeno,and Marc.

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Refugees around the world, refugees in Canada

Canada received 47,800 refugee claimants in 2017, more than twice the number in 2016. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press/Aug. 4, 2017)

War, internal conflicts, and environmental disasters in 2017 drove over 16 million people from the homes worldwide according to the United Nations.

In terms of countries receiving refugees, Canada was listed as ninth with over 47,000 asylum claims last year, more than double from the year before.

Lynn spoke about the situation with asylum seekers internationally and in Canada, with Petra Molnar lawyer and researcher with the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto.

Supreme Court of Canada rules against an evangelical Christian University

The Supreme Court decision in the Christian university case has left some experts scratching their heads. (Albert Couillard-CBC)

An evangelical private university with accepted high standards wished to expand by offering a law school to potential students. The university, as a Christian institution, says students must agree to a covenant on behaviour such as no cheating, lying, no alcohol on campus, and sex can only be between a married heterosexual couple.

Some provincial law societies said the covenant discriminates against lesbians and gays and so wouldn’t accept graduates to the bar in their provinces. The university took the case to the Supreme Court of Canada which ruled in a split decision in the law societies favour. Marc spoke with civil and constitutional rights lawyer John Carpay of the non-profit Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms who says he’s troubled by the SCC decision which he says seems based more on a political agenda than on the law itself

Teaching the youngest generation to be digitally literate

Coding was a priority in the Liberal government’s 2017 budget with $50 million allocated to help teach students from kindergarten to Grade 12 how to code. (Teghan Beaudette/CBC)

Canada does fairly well when it comes to digital literacy in the general population but there are concerns about falling behind in coming years.

Part of the problem is a fragmented approach to teaching digital skills across the country and across various age groups.

Carmel spoke to Sean Mullin, executive director of the Brookfield Institute at Ryerson University in Toronto. The institute recently published a report  called ‘Levelling Up: The Quest for Digital Literacy in Canada’

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