Apples, carrots, and peas on bikes
A ride for migrant rights. VPD officer charged with fraud. Police knew voyeur breached bail. Court blocks decampment. Hospital sent senior to DTES shelter.
Over Labour Day weekend, as the sun dipped into golden hour, dozens of migrants and supporters cycled through downtown Victoria brightly dressed as fruits and vegetables. They were drawing attention to policies they say oppress migrant workers who contribute to Canada’s agriculture and other sectors.
The Ride4Rights, organized by Dignidad Migrante — a grassroots organization led by temporary foreign workers — began at Irving Park in James Bay with stops for speeches at the BC Legislature, Government Street, and the Fort Street office of Liberal MP Will Greaves.
“I plant, cultivate, and harvest our food,” said Dignidad Migrante member Carlos de la Paz at the BC Legislature on Sunday. “With my work, schools and hospitals are built. The economy is maintained.”
He was speaking about his own work, and the work of countless other migrants who help sustain Canada’s food system and economy while being denied many of the rights afforded to other workers.
The action comes as migrant workers also deal with the fallout from a record wildfire season.
“During the Okanagan wildfires, many migrant workers were displaced and lost their jobs,” said speaker Andres Caicedo to the flow of pedestrians on Government Street [below].
“We pay into Employment Insurance with every paycheque,” he added. “But unlike other workers in the same situation, they were left without EI support.”
The protest also comes amid growing concern over changes to Canada’s immigration system, which threaten to further entrench what Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, calls “a two-tier society.”
De Facto Journalism Co-op
In May De Facto also revealed new data showing a sharp increase in police calls to federal immigration enforcement — calls that transit police have not been properly documenting.
And we revisited a crucial chapter in BC’s history of migrant organizing, tracing the long struggle against the systems that police and constrain migrant lives.
Carlos de la Paz is part of that history — and he told the crowd at the Legislature that he intends to keep fighting:
“I’ve demanded my rights as a migrant worker for so many years now that my hair is grey and my voice is tired, just like those who came before me asking for the same thing, and I am not going to stop.”
[Translated from Spanish]
Ex Facto
Stories we're reading about policing, homelessness, immigration, and other subjects we cover.
Police knew Canada’s most prolific voyeur was breaching bail conditions, court records reveal
After Yin Yeung Derek Chan was arrested in April 2024 for secretly recording over 400 women and children, his bail conditions forbade him from using his phone in public.
But a two-part investigation by CBC's Emily Fagan has revealed Saanich police knew he was using his phone at Victoria businesses he had targeted before, and didn't immediately act.
Chan made hundreds more recordings and uploaded them to social media and porn sites before being re-arrested in January 2025 and later sentenced to 4.5 years in jail.
The targeted businesses said they were not contacted by police about his presence. Police also did not disclose which locations Chan had targeted, in their public statement after his sentencing earlier this year.
Street population afflicted by tuberculosis and other rare maladies, Victoria medics say
Limited access to sanitation or warm and dry places have led to bacterial dysentery, WWI-like leg wounds, and more, according to a paramedic, doctor, and nurse who treat Pandora residents. The paramedic, and unhoused patients, also say Royal Jubilee Hospital's Psychiatric Emergency Services is unhelpful and at times even harmful.
In a comprehensive Times Colonist feature this summer, Jody Paterson looked at these conditions, current drug supply risks, and how decades of policy in multiple areas led to this point.
This month, Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk posted a video explaining how the leg wounds affect people, and how they develop: sleeping seated rather than in a bed, malnourishment, some drugs' effects on blood flow, and lack of regular medical care.
VPD alleges one of its own officers misappropriated up to $3M from 19 victims
A high-profile Vancouver police officer who once investigated financial crimes has now been charged with them, facing 8 counts of fraud and theft. VPD said last week that it had arrested and suspended Kal Dosanjh, after investigating since December 2023.
Dosanjh founded the charity KidsPlay, which is the subject of 2 of the charges plus a charge of breach of trust. The other charges — and several lawsuits — relate to property development. The longtime officer has denied the charges and reiterated that he is presumed innocent.
VPD investigating its own officer “raises legitimate concerns,” his lawyer said, about the process's independence and objectivity. In BC only the VPD and RCMP can handle such a major investigation, Chief Const. Steve Rai said, and they “determined with collective judgment” that VPD would do it.
Quebec's appeal court blocks Montreal from evicting encampment residents
The ruling upholds the Superior Court's earlier temporary ban on evicting about 10 people near an overpass in the Plateau-Mont-Royal area. Whether the city can ultimately remove them is being decided by its ongoing legal case against the Itinerant Legal Clinic, which works with unhoused people. [City News]
More news:
- Senior lost housing while in hospital, and was discharged to DTES shelter without notice to family. [The Tyee / LJI]
- Pro-Israel group CIJA is lobbying feds for expanded grounds to revoke Canadian citizenship and for other “standalone immigration consequences.” [The Maple]
- Ford government put a total pause on freedom-of-info requests in mid-May, freedom-of-info request reveals. [Global]
- BC's human rights commissioner will be an intervenor in a VIU student's court appeal of suspension over Palestine protests. [CHEK]
- Edmonton police are harassing, destroying tents, and threatening off-duty assault, claim street residents. [The Tyee]
