Is Ottawa treating all refugees fairly?

The problem for Teclehaimanot and others who would like to sponsor refugees who aren’t from Syria stems from a number of changes in immigration department procedures. A cap imposed on Canadian visa offices in Nairobi, Cairo, Pretoria, Dar es Salaam and Islamabad by Ottawa in 2011 has limited the number of refugees who can come to Canada, said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Similarly, she said, a cap on sponsorship agreement holders and the number of refugees they can sponsor also limits the flow of refugees to Canada.

Those restrictions, coupled with a backlog of 27,959 privately sponsored refugees, deep financial cuts to the department instituted by the former Conservative government and long processing times of up to 70 months for refugees from some countries, have made it difficult for those from many other regions.

Immigration spokesperson Lariviere said it would be “inappropriate to comment” on the issue of caps — either on Canadian visa offices or for sponsorship agreement holders — before the 2016 Immigration Levels Plan has been tabled in the House of Commons. That announcement is expected in coming weeks.

Teclehaimanot’s experience isn’t unusual. Every month, Canadians who want to sponsor family or friends in other parts of the world are turned away or told they have to wait.

“We have people here waiting year after year,” said Azaria Wolday, manager of the private sponsorship program for Northwood Neighbourhood Community Services. “We have at least 300 families in our books. We are not putting any more people on our waiting list.”

Last year, as many as 800 people approached Northwood about sponsoring Ethiopian, Eritrean, Sudanese and Afghan refugees. Wolday had to say no to most.

With that in mind he believes the federal government should take the lessons learned from dealing with Syrian refugees and apply them to other groups. “It is a matter of political will,” he said.

Similarly, at the refugee office for the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, organizers have turned away requests for sponsorship of refugees from Africa since September. There simply is no room to bring them in.

“Until 2011 we didn’t have any caps. In one year we backed 700 sponsorships. Next year we only did 200 because of the allocation given to us,” said Dr. Martin Mark, director of the Office for Refugees at the Archdiocese of Toronto.

“When we talk about refugees, half of the world’s refugee population in need of resettlement is in Africa,” said Mark. “We should have a significant number of spots for sub-Saharan Africans.”

To show the inequity, Mark says his organization was allowed 200 refugee spots through the Canadian visa office in Nairobi — but that covered refugee applications from not just Kenya but several other African countries.

He says his office has 200 African refugee submissions ready to go if spots become available. In contrast, he has unlimited spots for Syrians thanks to the government’s Syrian refugee program, he said.

He also believes processing of other refugee applications is slowing down because officers are concentrating on Syrian refugees.

Source: Is Ottawa treating all refugees fairly? | Toronto Star