Seven Oaks Magazine.

1) Could you explain Wendy Maxwell's participation in Toronto's International Women's Day (IWD) activities this year?

Wendy Maxwell is the IWD radio programmer for CKLN community radio. She had been bottom-lining IWD radio programming in the week leading up to today. And she was participating in IWD activities at one of the university campuses on Saturday. There was a big march that's happened for 15 years.

Wendy was tabling outside the IWD fair, selling cookies to raise money for the radio station. A marked police car showed up and a couple of officers approached her and told her that she was under arrest, and took her away into police custody at one of the local police divisions. So, because it happened at an IWD event that was themed around ending oppression, racial targeting and persecution of women, the irony and insult of the situation is obviously pretty thick.

She was held in police custody for a couple of hours and then quickly transferred into immigration custody, or the custody of Canada border services agency, which is the enforcement arm of Immigration Canada. She was then transferred into a maximum security prison a couple of hours outside of Toronto.

Yes, she is facing imminent deportation. She could be deported at any time. Today, a detention review took place at Vanier where the judge refused to grant bond, which means that she will not be released into the community, as of today. And it also means that the enforcement arm of immigration can begin deportation proceedings as quickly as they want to, or can.

She's a failed refugee claimant from Costa Rica who has lived in Canada for almost ten years. More than a year ago she submitted a humanitarian and compassionate application, which is the only option left after they failed her refugee claim. And the refugee process itself is very discriminatory and inadequate. That application was filed more than a year ago, but her deportation date had already come and gone. She had made the difficult to remain in Canada because going back to Costa Rica was not an option for her. She faces police violence and discrimination on the basis of gender.

5) This case, and the situation that Wendy and so many other women face, seems to point to the importance of also looking at race and class issues when looking at women's issues.

Obviously -- as a queer woman of colour who has been forced to work terrible jobs, and forced to scramble for employment as a means to survive -- there's systemic discrimination in the system. Also, immigration officials refused, in the first part of her attempt to stay here, to recognise how seriously she is being persecuted at home. Canada and Costa Rica have a cosy trade relationship, and that definitely feeds into a much broader trend of failing to recognise that women are persecuted and oppressed in ways that are deadly to them.

The crux of the matter at this point is that the pressure must be maintained to call for two things. One, that Wendy's humanitarian and compassionate application be adjudicated immediately, because these don't have to decided before deportation -- it's a nice loop-hole for immigration. The second thing is to demand that the Minister, Joe Volpe, intervene and grant her deferral of deportation, which he has the power to do.

7) What has been the response from people in Toronto to Wendy's arrest and the threat of deportation?

Wendy has, since she's been living here, been involved in countless community endeavours. The list is very long, whether it's working with women who are trying to transition out of the sex worker industry, whether it's volunteering her time at a legal clinic, or whether it's being a programmer at community radio stations. She's also an artist and an activist in communities of colour. So the out-pouring of support has been stupendous. There's a long list of women's organizations, queer organizations, and grassroots organizations.

But also there's been support from one of the opposition parties, the NDP. Jack Layton himself has written and hand delivered a letter calling for Wendy to be granted landed status immediately. He personally delivered that to the Minister of Immigration in Ottawa on Monday. And obviously, on the ground, there's been already three rallies in support of Wendy.