Advocates blast government on number of refugee sponsorships during its tenure

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/09/2015 (3157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LOCAL human rights lawyers and refugee advocates condemned the Harper government after a photo of a drowned child, the son of an asylum-seeker, was shared around the world.

Some hope the picture of three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, who was found face-down on a Turkish beach, will force the ruling Tories to immediately address the desperate plight of refugees.

Lawyer David Matas described the Harper government’s record on refugee sponsorship in two words: “not good.”

He pointed to a litany of changes the Tories have made to Canada’s refugee sponsorship program that have left claimants swimming in red tape.

They include the 2011 policy to restrict the amount of applications from certain visa posts; this includes the Nairobi visa office, which serves 18 African countries. The Canadian Council for Refugees estimates the Nairobi post has up to a six-year wait for an application to be processed.

In 2012, the government announced a cap that drastically reduced the number of new applications allowed for privately sponsored refugees.

The government said that would help alleviate the backlog.

Tom Denton, executive director of Hospitality House Ministry, has been working with refugees for 35 years. He calls the changes “mean-spirited” and a logistical nightmare.

For example, he cited the 2014 change to the definition of a dependant child to 19 from under 22.

He describes it as a paperwork nightmare in which an application form for a family has ballooned to 22 pages from two in the past decade.

“My work is sponsoring refugees. Right now, it has become so complex and so time-consuming at the front end, people are waiting, who may be in crisis, and it takes four or five years to get them here,” Denton said.

In January, in response to the current crisis in Syria, Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to bring 10,000 Syrians into Canada over the next three years.

As of July, according to the federal government, 1,002 Syrians have settled in Canada this year, along with 1,300 Syrians from a pledge made in 2013.

In 2010, the government pledged to increase the number of refugees it resettles by 20 per cent or 2,500 annually, a target it met only once, in 2011, when it brought in 27,873 refugees after resettling 24,697 refugees in 2010. Last year, 23,286 were resettled.

In 1980, 40,000 refugees arrived in Canada.

Matas argues there are several other changes that have made it more difficult for refugees to enter Canada in recent years, regardless of their nationality. This includes repealing the source-country class — meaning people who live in a refugee-like situation in their country of origin cannot apply.

“In general, the government’s response to refugee outflows has been to discourage it,” he said.

Matas describes the refugee system as nonfunctional, noting the reason refugees are choosing to cross oceans and flee rather than wait is a “vote with their feet” because the system isn’t working.

“If you want to prevent refugees from moving in the way that they are, you can’t just create distance, you also have to create incentives to stay where you are,” he said. “The way you do that is to have a functioning sponsorship program so people know they have a hope of coming if they stay where they are.”

Winnipeg immigration lawyer David Davis said the crisis is complex, regardless of which government is in power. He said a more efficient overseas refugee-application system would help ease the backlog.

“We are talking about millions of people that need to move around,” Davis said.

“I don’t think any political party that is in that place can do anything better than the other. I think you have sort of separate political rhetoric from the reality… it is just a matter of coming up with the best plan or solution.”

In response to a request for comment on Harper’s record on refugee sponsorship, a spokeswoman for Citizen and Immigration Canada said Canada is one of the world’s largest providers of humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees.

She also noted that Canada has provided humanitarian, development and security assistance as part of our multi-pronged response to the crisis in Syria, Iraq and the broader region.

 

— with files from The Canadian Press

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca