::: WHY WE ARE MARCHING :::


The No One Is Illegal March on Ottawa is organized by Solidarity Across Borders, a Montreal-area network of self-organized migrants, refugees, and immigrants, and their allies. We are marching, step-by-step, over 200km, from June 18-25, 2005. From the immigrant neighborhoods of Montreal, to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, we refuse to be invisible and silenced.

We are marching through the lands of the Mohawk and Algonquin peoples, and publicly supporting their demands for sovereignty and self-determination.

We are marching to support our main demands: 1) the regularization of all non-status people in Canada; 2) an end to the deportation and detention of migrants; and 3) the abolition of racist security certificates.

We are marching because hundreds of thousands of people live in Canada without status. These people – our friends, co-workers, schoolmates and neighbours – make up the social, economic and cultural fabric of cities like Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. Without status, and deemed “illegal”, thousands of migrants are forced to live in poverty, without sufficient access to health care or education, and in great fear of being detained or deported, all the while being the most exploited in the workplace.

We are marching because there is no such thing as an “illegal” human being, only unjust laws and illegitimate governments.

We march on the 10th anniversary of the “Bread and Roses” March against poverty, organized by Quebec women, and the 70th anniversary of the On-to-Ottawa Trek, organized by unemployed workers during the Great Depression; we march in the tradition of those previous efforts for social and economic justice.

Our march is directly inspired by Shamim Akhtar, a Pakistani refugee claimant and active member of Solidarity Across Borders. Shamim first proposed the idea of a refugee march to Ottawa in the summer of 2003. Unfortunately, Shamim and her family (including 4 children) were deported in the summer of 2004.

We march almost one year later with Shamim very much in mind, as well as all our other friends and allies who have been removed, detained, forced underground or forced into sanctuary in the past years: Wendy Maxwell, Sergio Loreto, the Cordoza family, the Daschevi family, Zahoor Hussein, Fahim Kayani, Tilo Johnson, Daniel and Irina Isakov, Mohamed Cherfi, Ahmed Nafaa, Ahmed Abdel Majeed, Faraz Abu Zimal, the Ibad family, the Butt family, the Syed family, Dawood Khan, Eduardo Perez, Gorka Salazar, Mourad and Nadia, the Vega family, the Borja family, the Ayoub family, the Ayele family, Sanya Pecelj, Samsu Mia, Amir Kazemian, Kobra and Hassan, Adrian Dragan, Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah, Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat, Adil Charkaoui and many, too many, more.

We have written hundreds of letters, collected thousands of signatures and organized dozens of demonstrations. We have successfully fought deportations and detentions, but have also seen our family members and friends permanently removed from our lives.

For every arbitrary detention, for every summary deportation, for every minute spent in jail without charge or trial, for every anxious and dehumanizing day spent waiting for status – all the days, months, years that the government has stolen from us -- we will take back minute by minute, with every step, on our march from Montreal to Ottawa. Join us and take back stolen time.