“Why didn’t they explain the law when we first came?” Mr. Rafia asked before he was sentenced this month to time served and a year’s probation. Mr. Rafia and his wife, Raghda Aldndal, were the subject of a sensitive and probing documentary about Canada’s Syrian refugees, produced by two Australian filmmakers last year. More than 40,000 Syrian refugees have settled in Canada, almost half of them sponsored privately by ordinary citizens like Ms. Burke. “You feel like a stranger,” Mr. Rafia said in the documentary, which was made shortly after the family’s arrival. It’s an exception,” Ms. Burke said, referring to the line that Ms. Leitch posted.

Source: New York Times June 21, 2017 10:52 UTC