Features
New book by Winnipeg-based refugee advocate Shauna Labman delves into Canada’s refugee resettlement program
Shauna Labman (second from right) & familyBy MYRON LOVE
In launching her first book, “Crossing Law’s Border: Canada’s Refugee Resettlement Program”, at McNally Robinson earlier this year, Shauna Labman took a somewhat different approach to this particular book launch. Rather than just reading an excerpt from the book, she invited one of her former students and one current student as well as the executive director of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba Inc. (IRCOM) – all of whom came to Canada as refugees – to share their stories.
“We had a huge crowd for the launch,” Labman recalls. “I wanted to provide some personal perspectives.”
She adds that the book, which examines the intersection of international rights, responsibility and obligation in the absence of a legal scheme for refugee resettlement, was ranked by The Hill Times as among the best 100 Canadian non-fiction books for 2019 and reached second place on McNally’s best-seller list under paperback non-fiction for the week of January 12-22 following the book launch.
“The book has received a great response,” she says. “Crossing Law’s Border” is raising awareness of who refugees are, why it’s important to protect them, and the different ways that refugees seek protection through resettlement and asylum.
“The book has been of particular interest to those working with and sponsoring refugees in Canada as well as Canadian officials overseas working on resettlement.”
The author has devoted most of her working life to the twin causes of human rights and refugees. This writer previously profiled her in the pages of this newspaper about ten years ago. At that time, she had recently returned to Winnipeg after 15 eventful years away.
The Ramah School and Balmoral Hall graduate and eldest daughter of Cyril and Jean Labman left Winnipeg right after high school for UBC and, later, the University of Victoria. While studying law at the University of Victoria, Labman was exposed through a co-operative law program to the work of the now defunct Law Commission of Canada which dealt with issues such as the Residential Schools cases, same sex marriage, workers’ rights and human rights and discrimination.
After graduation, she began her legal career at the Federal Court of Appeal, working on issues ranging from immigration to tax and patent law. “I soon realized,” she said in that earlier interview, “that I wasn’t interested in working in a traditional law practice. I had done some work in Ottawa with refugees. So I applied to the United Nations and I was posted to India for a six-month consultancy with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).”
Her work with UNHCR involved conducting refugee status determinations of Burmese asylum seekers and preparing resettlement referrals for Afghan refugees. Labman was struck by the reality that most refugees never make it to countries such as Canada, which might be willing to offer permanent protection, and instead remain in protracted states of limbo.
Following a stint at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing where she gained an appreciation of Canadian diplomacy and policy considerations, she returned to Canada with a clear cause and career goal. Using the academic avenues open to her, she began exploring how the voluntary programs of government resettlement and private sponsorship operate alongside of Canada’s obligations in international law to refugees who claim asylum. Her research examines, analyzes, and ultimately advocates for the protection needs of the refugees she left behind in India, as well as those of other refugees who wait patiently, but powerlessly, around the world.
Labman reports that “Crossing Law’s Border: Canada’s Refugee Resettlement Program” grew out of her Ph.D. thesis, which she completed in 2013. The focus of the future book, however, changed considerably after the Trudeau Government introduced its Syrian refugee resettlement program in 2015, she notes.
“My work,” she points out, “is bookended by the resettlement of Indochinese refugees in the 1970s and the recent Syrian arrivals.
“While both moments were driven by a humanitarian impulse to help unknown refugees, in the intervening years much of the private sponsorship program has involved family reunifications.”
Labman notes that most private sponsorships over the past few years have involved family re-unifications. Private sponsors voluntarily accept financial responsibility for the care and integration of the refugees that they adopt.
She adds that her family and several friends in their Wolseley neighbourhood have privately sponsored a family from Colombia.
Labman is concerned about the Federal Government’s shift in refuge policy more to private sponsorships in recent years. It used to be, she says, that government took responsibility for two-thirds of refugee sponsorship with private sponsors the remaining third. Currently, private sponsors account for two-thirds of refugees coming to Canada.
“There is a danger in becoming overly reliant on individual Canadians,” she as-serts.”
She also writes and advocates for the suspension of the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States, under which refugees must claim asylum in the first country they reach. Labman argues the United States is not a safe country for refugees.
Labman is greatly concerned about the effects of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic for refugees. “There is a lot more uncertainty and disappointment,” she says. “Many refugees have been waiting a long time already to be re-united with family in Canada. But our borders are closed.”
For refugees already recently arrived in Canada, she points out, the lockdown only adds heightened challenges as they adapt to a new country.
And Labman is wondering what Canadian refugee policy will look like after the pandemic is over. “Will a financially-strapped government be willing to bring in thousands of refugees from all over the world?” she asks. “Will private sponsors have the financial means and ability to support refugee families?”
About a year ago, Labman shifted from teaching law at the University of Manitoba to taking up the position of Associate Professor of Human Rights at the University of Winnipeg’s Global College. “The position encourages greater community engagement and I get to work with students from a broader range of backgrounds and perspectives while spending all my time talking about refugees, international law and human rights.”
With a young family – her son, Hugo, is eight and her daughter, Yael, is five – the move also lessened her commute and allows her to bike and walk to work until she, like many others, moved to working from home in March.
She continues to works closely with the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba and currently sits on their Board of Directors.
Labman reports that she will have a second book coming out in August – “Strangers to Neighbours: Refugee Sponsorship in Context” – this one a b edited collection that offers the first dedicated study of refugee sponsorship policy. She notes that one of the chapters is being written by Madison Pearlman (who, this writer profiled in the December 7, 2016, issue of the JP&N).
As Labman’s research assistant at Robson Hall, the two women co-authored an article on refugee sponsorship and now, as a newly-minted young lawyer, Pearlman is contributing a chapter on Operation Ezra, our Jewish community’s successful effort to sponsor more than 50 Yazidi refugees and reunite them with family here.
Features
Israel’s Arab Population Finds Itself in Dire Straits
By HENRY SREBRNIK There has been an epidemic of criminal violence and state neglect in the Arab community of Israel. At least 56 Arab citizens have died since the beginning of this year. Many blame the government for neglecting its Arab population and the police for failing to curb the violence. Arabs make up about a fifth of Israel’s population of 10 million people. But criminal killings within the community have accounted for the vast majority of Israeli homicides in recent years.
Last year, in fact, stands as the deadliest on record for Israel’s Arab community. According to a year-end report by the Center for the Advancement of Security in Arab Society (Ayalef), 252 Arab citizens were murdered in 2025, an increase of roughly 10 percent over the 230 victims recorded in 2024. The report, “Another Year of Eroding Governance and Escalating Crime and Violence in Arab Society: Trends and Data for 2025,” published in December, noted that the toll on women is particularly severe, with 23 Arab women killed, the highest number recorded to date.
Violence has expanded beyond internal criminal disputes, increasingly affecting public spaces and targeting authorities, relatives of assassination targets, and uninvolved bystanders. In mixed Arab-Jewish cities such as Acre, Jaffa, Lod, and Ramla, violence has acquired a political dimension, further eroding the fragile social fabric Israel has worked to sustain.
In the Negev, crime families operate large-scale weapons-smuggling networks, using inexpensive drones to move increasingly advanced arms, including rifles, medium machine guns, and even grenades, from across the borders in Egypt and Jordan. These weapons fuel not only local criminal feuds but also end up with terrorists in the West Bank and even Jerusalem.
Getting weapons across the border used to be dangerous and complex but is now relatively easy. Drones originally used to smuggle drugs over the borders with Egypt and Jordan have evolved into a cheap and effective tool for trafficking weapons in large quantities. The region has been turning into a major infiltration route and has intensified over the past two years, as security attention shifted toward Gaza and the West Bank.
The Negev is not merely a local challenge; it serves as a gateway for crime and terrorism across Israel, including in cities. The weapons flow into mixed Jewish-Arab cities and from there penetrate the West Bank, fueling both organized crime and terrorist activity and blurring the line between them.
The smuggling of weapons into Israel is no longer a marginal criminal phenomenon but an ongoing strategic threat that traces a clear trail: from porous borders with Egypt and Jordan, through drones and increasingly sophisticated smuggling methods, into the heart of criminal networks inside Israel, and in a growing number of cases into lethal terrorist operations. A deal that begins as a profit-driven criminal transaction often ends in a terrorist attack. Israeli police warn that a population flooded with illegal weapons will act unlawfully, the only question being against whom.
The scale of the threat is vast. According to law enforcement estimates, up to 160,000 weapons are smuggled into Israel each year, about 14,000 a month. Some sources estimate that about 100,000 illegal weapons are circulating in the Negev alone.
Israeli cities are feeling this. Acre, with a population of about 50,000, more than 15,000 of them Arab, has seen a rise in violent incidents, including gunfire directed at schools, car bombings, and nationalist attacks. In August 2025, a 16-year-old boy was shot on his way to school, triggering violent protests against the police.
Home to roughly 35,000 Arab residents and 20,000 Jewish residents, Jaffa has seen rising tensions and repeated incidents of violence between Arabs and Jews. In the most recent case, on January 1, 2026, Rabbi Netanel Abitan was attacked while walking along a street, and beaten.
In Lod, a city of roughly 75,000 residents, about half of them Arab, twelve murders were recorded in 2025, a historic high. The city has become a focal point for feuds between crime families. In June 2025, a multi-victim shooting on a central street left two young men dead and five others wounded, including a 12-year-old passerby. Yet the killing of the head of a crime family in 2024 remains unsolved to this day; witnesses present at the scene refused to testify.
The violence also spilled over to Jewish residents: Jewish bystanders were struck by gunfire, state officials were targeted, and cars were bombed near synagogues. Hundreds of Jewish families have left the city amid what the mayor has described as an “atmosphere of war.”
Phenomena that were once largely confined to the Arab sector and Arab towns are spilling into mixed cities and even into predominantly Jewish cities. When violence in mixed cities threatens to undermine overall stability, it becomes a national problem. In Lod and Jaffa, extortion of Jewish-owned businesses by Arab crime families has increased by 25 per cent, according to police data.
Ramla recorded 15 murders in 2025, underscoring the persistence of lethal violence in the city. Many victims have been caught up in cycles of revenge between clans, often beginning with disputes over “honour” and ending in gunfire. Arab residents describe the city as “cursed,” while Jewish residents speak openly about being afraid to leave their homes
Reluctance to report crimes to the authorities is a central factor exacerbating the problem. Fear of retaliation by families or criminal organizations deters victims and their relatives from coming forward, contributing to a clearance rate of less than 15 per cent of all murders. The Ayalef report notes that approximately 70 per cent of witnesses refused to cooperate with police investigations, citing doubts about the state’s ability to provide protection.
Violence in Arab society is not just an Arab sector problem; it poses a direct and serious threat to Israel’s national security. The impact is twofold: on the one hand, a rise in crime that affects the entire population; on the other, the spillover of weapons and criminal activity into terrorism, threatening both internal and regional stability. This phenomenon reached a peak in 2025, with implications that could lead to a third intifada triggered by either a nationalist or criminal incident.
The report suggests that along the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, Israel should adopt a technological and security-focused response: reinforcing border fences with sensors and cameras, conducting aerial patrols to counter drones, and expanding enforcement activity.
This should be accompanied by a reassessment of the rules of engagement along the border area, enabling effective interdiction of smuggling and legal protocols that allow for the arrest and imprisonment of offenders. The report concludes by emphasizing that rising violence in cities, compounded by weapons smuggling in the Negev, is eroding Israel’s internal stability.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
The Chapel on the CWRU Campus: A Memoir
By DAVID TOPPER In 1964, I moved to Cleveland, Ohio to attend graduate school at Case Institute of Technology. About a year later, I met a girl with whom I fell in love; she was attending Western Reserve University. At that time, they were two entirely separate schools. Nonetheless, they share a common north-south border.
Since Reserve was originally a Christian college, on that border between the two schools there is a Chapel on the Reserve (east) side, with a four-sided Tower. On the top of the Tower are three angels (north, east, & south) and a gargoyle (west); the latter therefore faces the Case side. Its mouth is a waterspout – and so, when it rains, the gargoyle spits on the Case side. The reason for this, I was told, is that the founder of Case, Leonard Case Jr., was an atheist.
In 1968, that girl, Sylvia, and I got married. In the same year the two schools united, forming what is today still Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). I assume the temporal proximity of these two events entails no causality. Nevertheless, I like the symbolism, since we also remain married (although Sylvia died almost 6 years ago).
Speaking of symbolism: it turns out that the story told to me is a myth. Actually, Mr. Case was a respected member of the Presbyterian Church. Moreover, the format of the Tower is borrowed from some churches in the United Kingdom – using the gargoyle facing west, toward the setting sun, to symbolize darkness, sin, or evil. It just so happens that Case Tech is there – a fluke. Just a fluke.
We left Cleveland in 1970, with our university degrees. Harking back to those days, only once during my six years in Cleveland, was I in that Chapel. It was the last day before we left the city – moving to Winnipeg, Canada – where I still live. However, it was not for a religious ceremony – no, not at all. Sylvia and I were in the Chapel to attend a poetry reading by the famed Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg.
My final memory of that Chapel is this. After the event, as we were walking out, I turned to Sylvia and said: “I’m quite sure that this is the first and only time in the entire long history of this solemn Chapel that those four walls heard the word ‘fuck’.” Smiling, she turned to me and said, “Amen.”
This story was first published in “Down in the Dirt Magazine,”
vol, 240, Mars and Cotton Candy Clouds.
Features
MyIQ: Supporting Lifelong Learning Through Accessible Online IQ Testing
Strong communities are built on education, curiosity, and meaningful conversation. Whether through schools, cultural institutions, or family discussions at the dinner table, intellectual growth has always played a central role in local life. Today, digital tools are expanding the ways individuals explore personal development — including the ability to assess cognitive skills online.
One such platform is MyIQ, an online service that allows users to take a structured IQ test and receive detailed results. As more people seek accessible educational resources, platforms like MyIQ are becoming part of broader conversations about learning, intelligence, and personal growth.
Why Cognitive Self-Assessment Matters in Local Communities
Education as a Community Value
Across many communities, education is viewed not simply as academic achievement, but as a lifelong commitment to learning. Parents encourage curiosity in their children. Students strive for academic excellence. Adults pursue professional growth or personal enrichment.
Cognitive assessment tools offer a structured way to reflect on skills such as:
- Logical reasoning
- Numerical understanding
- Pattern recognition
- Verbal analysis
These are foundational abilities that influence academic performance and everyday problem-solving.
Encouraging Constructive Dialogue
Online discussions about intelligence often spark meaningful reflection. When handled responsibly, IQ testing can serve as a starting point for conversations about:
- Study habits
- Educational opportunities
- Strengths and challenges
- The balance between genetics and environment
MyIQ fits into this dialogue by providing structured results and transparent explanations.
What Is MyIQ?
MyIQ is an online IQ testing platform designed to measure reasoning abilities across multiple cognitive domains. Unlike casual internet quizzes, MyIQ presents an organized testing experience followed by contextualized reporting.
A public Reddit discussion that references the platform can be viewed here: MyIQ
In this thread, users openly discuss their results and reflect on possible influences such as family background and personal development. The transparency of this conversation highlights organic engagement and reinforces the platform’s credibility.
How the MyIQ Test Is Structured
Multi-Domain Assessment
MyIQ evaluates intelligence across several structured areas:
Logical Reasoning
Assesses the ability to analyze information and draw conclusions.
Mathematical Reasoning
Measures comfort with numbers, sequences, and quantitative logic.
Pattern Recognition
Evaluates the ability to detect visual or numerical relationships.
Verbal Comprehension
Tests interpretation and understanding of written material.
This approach ensures that results are not based on a single narrow skill set but on a broader cognitive profile.
Clear and Contextualized Results
After completing the assessment, users receive:
- An overall IQ score
- Percentile ranking
- Explanation of score range
- Identification of stronger and weaker domains
For individuals unfamiliar with IQ metrics, percentile ranking offers helpful context. Instead of viewing a number in isolation, users can understand how their results compare statistically.
Such clarity supports responsible interpretation and reduces misunderstanding.
Comparing MyIQ to Informal IQ Quizzes
| Feature | MyIQ | Informal Online Quiz |
| Structured Categories | Yes | Often Random |
| Percentile Explanation | Included | Rare |
| Balanced Reporting | Yes | Minimal |
| Community Discussion | Active | Limited |
| Professional Presentation | Yes | Varies |
For readers interested in credible digital services, this structured approach stands out.
Responsible Use of IQ Testing
It is important to emphasize that IQ scores represent specific cognitive abilities measured under standardized conditions. They do not define:
- Character
- Work ethic
- Creativity
- Compassion
- Community involvement
Many successful individuals contribute meaningfully to their communities regardless of standardized test scores. MyIQ presents results as informational tools rather than labels, encouraging thoughtful reflection.
The Role of Community Feedback
Trust in digital services increasingly depends on transparent user experiences. The Reddit thread linked above demonstrates:
- Voluntary sharing of results
- Open questions about interpretation
- Constructive discussion about intelligence and background
- Honest reflection on expectations
Such dialogue aligns with community values that prioritize conversation and shared understanding.
When users openly analyze their experiences, it adds authenticity beyond promotional claims.
Who Might Benefit from MyIQ?
Students
Students preparing for academic milestones may find value in understanding their reasoning strengths.
Parents
Parents curious about cognitive development may use structured assessments as conversation starters about learning habits.
Professionals
Adults seeking self-improvement can use IQ testing as one of many personal development tools.
Lifelong Learners
Individuals who enjoy intellectual exploration may simply appreciate structured insight into how they process information.
Digital Tools and Modern Learning
Community life increasingly intersects with technology. From online education platforms to digital libraries, accessible learning resources are expanding opportunities.
MyIQ fits into this landscape by offering:
- Online accessibility
- Clear and structured format
- Immediate feedback
- Transparent reporting
This accessibility allows individuals to explore cognitive assessment privately and thoughtfully.
Intelligence: Genetics and Environment
The Reddit discussion highlights a common question: how much of intelligence is influenced by genetics versus environment?
While scientific research suggests both play roles, IQ testing should not be viewed as deterministic. Education quality, nutrition, mental stimulation, and life experiences all contribute to cognitive development.
MyIQ does not claim to define destiny. Instead, it offers a snapshot — a moment of measurement within a broader life journey.
Final Thoughts: MyIQ as a Tool for Reflection
Communities thrive when curiosity is encouraged and learning is valued. In this spirit, structured self-assessment tools can serve as part of a healthy intellectual culture.
MyIQ provides an organized, transparent, and discussion-supported approach to online IQ testing. With contextualized results and visible community dialogue, the platform demonstrates credibility and accessibility.
For readers interested in exploring their reasoning abilities — whether for academic, professional, or personal reasons — MyIQ offers a modern digital option aligned with the principles of education, reflection, and lifelong growth.
Used thoughtfully, it becomes not a label, but a conversation starter — one that supports curiosity, awareness, and continued learning within any engaged community.