About Us

The Canadian Centre on Statelessness is a non-profit organization that seeks action against statelessness through research, advocacy and the fostering of a national community of allies including persons affected by statelessness.

Founded in 2014, the Centre's mandate is to affect societal, political and legislative changes as they relate to the protection and status of stateless persons. With recent legislative changes in Canada, the need to develop partnerships in the fight against statelessness is essential. CCS is a centre where those who wish to join the cause can meet and discuss issues online, collaborate and partner in the course of advocacy and research, and learn about statelessness in the Canadian and global contexts. The three pillars of CCS are National Community, Research, and Engage.

The Canadian Centre on Statelessness was launched on November 4th, 2014, the 60 year anniversary of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. On November 18th, 2014, CCS became a founding member of the Americas Network on Nationality and Statelessness, and in November 2015 CCS joined the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights as a coalition member. CCS is also proud to support the OHIP For All campaign.

VISION

The Canadian Centre on Statelessness envisions a society in which a sense of existence and belonging of all people, however they define themselves, is reciprocally recognized and protected.

MISSION

The Canadian Centre on Statelessness exists to defend and promote the well-being of persons with lived experiences of statelessness, in particular those within the Canadian context, through:

RESEARCH

We co-generate and foster reciprocal exchanges of knowledge created by lived experiences of statelessness, participatory research, and policy analysis.

COMMUNITY

We work together as stateless persons and allies in a community that practices and cultivates respect for the rights, choices, and belonging of persons with experiences of statelessness.

ADVOCACY

We amplify emancipatory knowledges and action, through intersectional allyship, for the purpose of influencing legislative, policy and social change.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ALEKSANDRA BARRY
has experience with statelessness and provides a valuable perspective on
behalf of stateless persons in Canada and beyond.

PATRICK CIASCHI
is a PhD candidate at the New School for Social Research, in the department of Politics.
He has worked with and on migration related initiatives at the Zolberg Institute on
Migration and Mobility and the Emerging Scholars and Practitioners of Migration Issues Network
over the past several years. His doctoral work looks at the changing governance
of social housing and neighborhood regulations in contemporary Hungary and how these shifts
affect racialized vulnerable groups. His broader interests are in subjective conceptions of home,
digital welfare in social housing, the injustices of global domicide, and legal architecture of the
Canadian immigration regime.

JOCELYN KANE
is the founder of CCS and is a PhD candidate in Political Studies
at the University of Ottawa where she researches voluntary statelessness.

JESS NOTWELL
is a Two Spirit Cree/Scots Métis land defender, scholar, and Co-Founder
of IGNITE Global Feminist Collective, and has extensive experience in
global human rights and decolonial activism. Her PhD research focuses on the ways in which
women’s everyday decolonial actions contribute to liberation/decolonization,
including by addressing settler/colonial violence as genocide, mass incarceration,
land theft, and collective punishment including statelessness.