'Our government has failed us' say Londoners with Canadian family members trapped in Gaza
CBC
Some Londoners with family members who are Canadian citizens stuck in Gaza say they feel let down by the federal government who has not yet been able to get their loved ones out of the besieged region and across the border into Egypt.
Other foreign passport holders have started to leave but Canadian names have not been on the lists of approved individuals. On Friday morning, CBC News said sources have said evacuations of Canadians out of Gaza should start Sunday.
"Everyday, we're calling my dad just making sure that he's OK, that he's still alive," said Samah Al-Sabbagh, whose elderly father is trapped in northern Gaza.
"I have to answer to my father every time I speak to him and he asks what's going on and why the Canadians aren't allowed to leave yet, and I'm sitting here like 'What do I tell him?'"
Al-Sabbagh said her dad, Akram, 73, has been a Canadian citizen for 32 years, and went to visit his brother in Gaza at the end of September. He's had to relocate multiple times since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7.
More than 300 foreign passport holders and more than 70 seriously injured Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza at the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday, for the first time since the war began.
Global Affairs has said it expects foreign and dual nationals will be able to leave Gaza on a country-by-country basis. Canada will be assigned a specific departure date for some 450 Canadians who are registered with the department in Gaza and West Bank.
Al-Sabbagh worries Akram still won't be get to the border in southern Gaza, even after Canadians can start crossing, because roads connecting the north and south have been completely destroyed, she said,
She also hasn't received any answers from Global Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Canadian embassy in Egypt, Al-Sabbagh added
"I'm starting to lose hope," she said tearfully. "I'm on the phone with them everyday asking to find a way to get him to the south but they tell me 'Sorry, he has to find his own way."
"We continue to work around the clock to secure a window for Canadians to exit Gaza. We are communicating directly with Canadians, giving them the latest information regarding the situation," said a statement from Global Affairs Canada on Thursday.
The department added that Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly "is in contact with both her Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and our embassies are pushing through their channels as well."
Reem Sultan represented London in a group of Palestinian-Canadians who met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Toronto, Wednesday, to share their families' stories and asked Trudeau to call for an immediate ceasefire.
"Our main plea was for him to call for a ceasefire so we can get our loved ones out because they can die at any moment. There's no safe place in Gaza and at any moment we can receive the news that they've perished," Sultan told CBC News Network on Thursday.
A Calgary lawyer who falsified court documents and repeatedly lied to a client, causing the man to miss out on parenting time with his youngest child, pleaded guilty to forgery on Thursday.
The Crown has stayed an assault charge against Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Jeremy Tunraluk.
Alberta’s minister of hospitals says a province-wide strategy has begun to ease the strain on the acute care system as frontline doctors continue to declare that provincial hospitals are dangerously overcrowded.
As snow squalls continue to blanket southwestern Ontario, school boards in the London region announced the closure of all schools Thursday morning, and police are reporting closures and collisions across the area roads.
A Canadian citizen has died in Iran “at the hands of the Iranian authorities,” according to Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand.
On Boxing Day, Victoria Lethbridge and her partner took their dog and baby out for a morning walk in brand new snowshoes around the corner from their home in Hickman’s Harbour.
When a U.S. company made its data centre pitch to some concerned Saint John residents late last year, he called the city an untapped “gold mine” for artificial intelligence projects.
Over the past seven years, when outgoing premier François Legault's government tabled a contentious bill, he would often justify it by saying it represented the will of the vast majority of Quebecers.
The union representing Manitoba's nurses is concerned a reduction in the number of nursing agencies the province works with could exacerbate staffing shortages during the transition period.
Developers convinced a Saskatoon city council committee Wednesday to give some more thought to proposed changes to a longstanding incentive to encourage infill.
A Regina real estate agent has been sanctioned by the Saskatchewan Real Estate Commission after he arranged to pay someone to tamper with other businesses' Google Business profiles.
Peter Bevan-Baker will not be running for re-election in the next provincial election, the Green Party of P.E.I. announced Thursday morning.
Businesses in Edmonton don’t have to recycle or compost — but that could soon change.