Axworthy and Rock: Here’s a better fix for Roxham Road

2023/03/29 Leave a comment

Predictable, and only workable in the context of the excessively high and increasing immigration levels. But not necessarily in the context of an immigration policy that takes into the account of the impact on housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

Ottawa pundits say that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scored a political win by securing President Joe Biden’s agreement to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA). Henceforth, it will apply across the entire Canada-U.S. border, and asylum seekers can be turned away at any crossing point. Ottawa has thereby responded adroitly to Quebec Premier François Legault’s complaints about the flow of migrants entering Quebec at the infamous Roxham Road border crossing.

But there is something that neither the Prime Minister nor the President mentioned in their announcement: the impact of their decision on the men, women and children fleeing violence and persecution who had hoped to cross the Canadian border after feeling anything but safe in the United States. The vast majority are not in any way a threat to our security. They are ordinary people searching for sanctuary by putting themselves and their families at grave risk on a perilous journey, one they’d hoped would end with a Canadian border crossing.

We are left to imagine the bitter disappointment they will feel when instead of a portal to Canada they are met with a locked gate, a warning sign and no choice but to face the notoriously hostile American border security officials. As we have learned by watching the Mediterranean, some, in their desperation, will look for other points of entry to Canada by taking greater risks and putting their lives in danger. One “loophole” may have been closed, but others will no doubt appear.

“It’s what they deserve,” some will say. “Play by the rules! Don’t jump the queue!” But almost all of them are vulnerable survivors who escaped persecution and oppression simply to assert an ancient right – the right to asylum.

The right to seek asylum is codified in the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention. Before the STCA came into effect in 2002, under international law the convention obligated Canada to allow refugees to enter and remain here until the validity of their claim for asylum could be determined by a tribunal. Under the STCA, Canada effectively subcontracted this obligation to the United States.

There was another matter that neither our Prime Minister nor the President mentioned last week: the constitutional validity of the STCA is to be considered by the Supreme Court of Canada in the coming months. Depending on what the court decides, our government could end up not with a political win, but instead a major loss of credibility. The court could send Parliament back to the drawing board to legislate a new migration policy based on the paramountcy of human rights, instead of expediency.

It is fitting that the issue will hinge on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has had a major influence on Canadian attitudes toward migration. Polls have consistently shown that Canadians have a strong attachment to an open system of immigration. While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau spoke of shared values, there is one major exception: Canadians differ from Americans in our commitment to pluralism and welcoming newcomers. Why, then, are we doubling down on a policy so inconsistent with that distinctive characteristic?

There is a better way. As Minister of Immigration, Sean Fraser demonstrated Canada’s openness by setting a target to welcome half a million newcomers to Canada in 2025. However, he also announced that the number of refugees admitted would be reduced from 76,000 in 2023, to 73,000 in 2025. It is not clear whether the 73,000-person figure will now include the 15,000 Central American migrants Canada promised it would assist the U.S. in resettling during President Biden’s visit last week. In any case, we should strive to dedicate 20 per cent of our 2025 immigration goal to the resettlement of forcibly displaced people, taking in at least 100,000 in 2025. We can work to build up the capacity of our U.S. diplomatic posts, and our U.S.-Canada border crossing points, to receive, process and settle those with legitimate asylum claims.

Let’s take on the diplomatic task of building a collaborative, hemispheric migration network and devote the necessary resources to make it work. We can draw on our ability to convene, and our talent for negotiation, by inviting a group of like-minded governments, civil society groups, and international organizations to a summit aimed at reviving and strengthening the imperilled right to asylum. Migration is increasing, driven by climate change and conflict. We have to get things right at our border – politically and morally.

A border that assures security while respecting asylum seekers and welcoming migrants? Now that would be a real win for Canada.

Lloyd Axworthy is a former foreign minister and current chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council. Allan Rock is a former attorney-general and minister of justice, and a member of the World Refugee and Migration Council.

Source: Here’s a better fix for Roxham Road

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Axworthy and Rock: The Safe Third Country Agreement is unsafe – and unconstitutional

2022/10/12 Leave a comment

Reflections of former ministers (easier when no longer in government) but will see what the Supreme Court rules:

Former ministers As Canadians, we take pride in our well-deserved reputation as a caring society that offers a humane and generous response to those seeking asylum. Yet last week, the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments that since 2004, Canadians have been complicit in the mistreatment of refugees arriving at our border from the United States.

At the heart of this issue is the 2004 Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which requires that refugee claimants seek protection in the first country in which they arrive, be it Canada or the United States. On a practical level, this means that a person seeking asylum from a country other than Canada or the U.S. cannot seek protection in Canada if they have already landed in the U.S., and vice-versa. For the past 18 years, the STCA has operated on the premise that both countries are “safe” for refugees.

In July, 2020, a federal court judge determined that the STCA is unconstitutional and that Canada’s treatment of STCA returnees violates those provisions of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantee liberty and security of the person. The Federal Court of Appeal took a different view and upheld the STCA. Hence, the matter is now before our highest court for a final decision.

The problem here is not the agreement itself. In fact, similar arrangements have succeeded when all participating countries truly offer safety to asylum seekers. Instead, the problem is that the fundamental premise of the STCA no longer holds true. Put simply, the United States is not safe for many refugees. As a result, there are two distinct reasons why, in our respectful view, the Supreme Court should strike down the STCA.

First, while it is not the Court’s role to judge another country’s legal system, this case asks the Court to ensure that people who seek protection in Canada are not sent back to unjustifiable risk and real harm. Yet in returning people to foreseeable consequences in the U.S. – namely, detention in deplorable conditions and a serious risk of return to persecution – that is exactly what is occurring.

In the evidence before the Court, there are numerous examples of asylum seekers who were jailed in the U.S. after being turned away from Canada. They include a family with toddlers who were forbidden from sleeping with their parents; people kept for long periods in solitary confinement; and a 50-year-old woman forced to bathe naked in full view of security personnel.

Those who we send back to be detained in the U.S. face enormous barriers in claiming protection, leading some to be deported and persecuted in their home country. For example, the evidence in the case before the Court includes testimony from a Sri Lankan man who was turned away from Canada and then detained for a year and a half in the U.S. He was then deported and faced the exact persecution he feared – detention, interrogation and beatings by Sri Lankan authorities.

Second, our government has not been respecting the limits created by our own domestic laws. Canadian law implementing the STCA requires that our government monitor circumstances in the U.S. and only continue its designation as “safe” when it truly is. Here, the Court will hear the argument that Canada has neither adequately monitored what’s happening in the U.S. nor responded effectively to what it has seen. Given these circumstances, the Court will be asked to intervene.

Although Donald Trump is no longer in power, the reality for too many refugee claimants in the U.S. remains terrifying. We are by now all too familiar with last year’s images of U.S. border patrol agents on horseback chasing down Haitian migrants. And four years after the implementation of a disastrous policy at the U.S.-Mexico border that separated children from their parents, many are yet to be reunited. Immigration detention conditions in the U.S. remain deplorable, with staggeringly high rates of sexual assault and racially motivated attacks. Is Canada not properly monitoring these developments, or have we grown complacent in turning a blind eye to them? In either case, the STCA can no longer be allowed to stand.

It is important to note that even if the STCA is declared invalid, asylum seekers will still have to establish that they qualify for refugee status under international law. But they will no longer be automatically deemed ineligible for that status merely because they crossed into Canada from the United States.

It is said that the measure of a society is how it treats those on its margins. When vulnerable asylum seekers arrive at our border, they deserve to be treated lawfully and with dignity. We can no longer assume that if we send them back to the U.S., they will be safe. Indeed, the evidence establishes the contrary. It is time for us to abandon the STCA, an agreement no longer worthy of its name.

Lloyd Axworthy is chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council and a former Canadian foreign minister. Allan Rock is president emeritus of the University of Ottawa, and former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations.

Source: The Safe Third Country Agreement is unsafe – and unconstitutional

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More federal action needed to restore lost Canadian citizenship rights: Rock and Axworthy

2017/03/29 Leave a comment

Former Ministers Alan Rock and Lloyd Axworthy argue in favour of the proposed expansion of voting rights for non-resident Canadians in Bill C-33 and repeal of the first generation limit to the transmission of  Canadian citizenship.

The main weaknesses in their arguments:

  • Reinforces a global, more instrumental concept of citizenship, without a meaningful connection to Canada;
  • C-33 only requires a citizen to have been born in Canada in order to have voting rights, irrespective of how little time spent in Canada;
  • Repealing the first generation limit means a further weakening of the meaningfulness of citizenship and connection to Canada, as again the second or subsequent generations could retain citizenship without having lived in Canada;
  • Immigrants wishing to become citizens to be physically present in Canada (four out of six years currently, three out of six as proposed in Bill C-6) and retention after the first generation should, at a minimum, require residency;
  • Like others, they exaggerate the number of Canadians with connections to Canada. Passport data shows about 630,000 active non-resident adult passport holders, not the 2 to 3 million cited. This is a minimal connection test (taxation data shows about 130,000);
  • The exemption to the first generation limit for public servants serving abroad recognizes the fact that they work directly for the government, rotate regularly back to Canada, and pay Canadian taxes. This is quite different from those who spend their entire life abroad, do not return regularly for more than short visits, and for the most part, don’t pay Canadian taxes; and,
  • Largely targeted towards globally mobile professionals, Ministers Rock and Axworthy’s proposal fails to consider the implications for the broader population, whether it be the many non-resident Canadians who simply live their lives abroad without making “important global contributions” or resident Canadians who may feel that granting citizenship without residence devalues the meaning of being Canadian. 

    Their proposal is largely targeted towards those globally mobile professionals without considering the implications to the broader population of non-resident Canadians.

Canada’s former Minister of Democratic Institutions, Maryam Monsef, recently observed that in the 21st century, there are many good reasons why Canadians choose to live overseas, and that there is no reason to create barriers to their participation in democratic processes.

We agree, but would go further. Canadians living and working overseas face government barriers not only in participating in democratic processes, but also in passing along citizenship. These must be addressed.

The occasion for the comments made by Ms. Monsef – recently appointed Minister of Status of Women – was the introduction of legislation to repeal provisions of the federal Fair Elections Act. Adopted in 2014, this statute provides, amongst other things, that Canadians living overseas can vote only within five years of leaving Canada, and must have the stated intention of returning home.

In repealing this provision through Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, the federal government will remove one important penalty for Canadians living and working overseas. However, it is overlooking a potentially even greater disincentive.

A little-known 2006 amendment to the Citizenship Act limits Canadian citizenship to just the first-generation of children born to or adopted by Canadians who live outside Canada. Thus, children born to or adopted by Canadian parents who are travelling, studying, or working abroad become citizens of Canada at birth or at the time of adoption, but their children are not entitled to Canadian citizenship if they are born outside Canada.

This is harmful for at least two reasons.

First, the amendment to the Citizenship Act strikes us as discriminatory, and out of step with the principle that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” as articulated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The amendment effectively creates two classes of Canadians: those who can pass along citizenship to their children and those who cannot. Furthermore, the amendment discriminates in favour of federal employees and military personnel who serve outside Canada. Under the current legislation, they are explicitly exempted from the limits on citizenship imposed by the amendment.

Second, Canada is deeply interconnected economically, socially and culturally with communities and countries around the globe. Canadians have a long history of important global contributions in international finance, peacekeeping, United Nations’ service, and humanitarian action, to name a few. We should be encouraging Canadians to venture beyond our borders to contribute to the broader global community, whether this be as students, travellers, or professionals – now, more than ever. Unfortunately, the current provisions of the Citizenship Act may have the opposite effect, by deterring Canadians from going overseas to work.

To date, the government has sought to justify this provision based on “simplicity and transparency.” We respectfully submit that any administrative advantages are substantially outweighed both by the principles of fairness and equity required by Canadian law, and by the importance of maintaining Canada’s standing in, and contributions to, the community of nations.

In terms of scope of impact, it is worth considering that at any point in time, 2-3 million Canadians live, work, or travel overseas. If even 0.5 per cent of these people have children overseas, this would amount to 10,000-15,000 children whose rights are limited and whose options are narrowed by this legislation each year. These numbers underscore the urgency and importance of addressing this matter quickly.

As the Government moves to restore voting rights to Canadians living overseas, it should also restore another fundamental birthright by allowing foreign-born descendants of Canadians who were themselves born outside our country to begin life with Canadian citizenship.

Source: More federal action needed to restore lost Canadian citizenship rights – The Globe and Mail

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