While I was away: Multiculturalism articles of interest

2026/10/13 Leave a comment

Siddiqui: No, Mark Carney, Canada is not the most European non-European country

Not seeing much evidence for this in polling data and of course lands once occupied by Europeans were also subject in many cases to periods of conquest by other groups and countries:

… Carney has demonstrated no real feel for this new Canada and seems unaware that when he talks of Canada’s great affinity to Europe, he grates on many, especially Indigenous people and Canadians of non-European stock. His enthusiasm is particularly offensive to those of us who’ve come from lands once occupied by European colonialists — racist, cruel and rapacious.

Contrary to Carney’s assertion, Canada is the least Western of Western nations. As philosopher John Ralston Saul has argued, we are a “Métis nation,” shaped by Indigenous Peoples and their values of moderation and compromise — reflected in the 1867 British North America Act, a compact between the Indigenous, the English and the French. We can draw a line from that to this contemporary blessing: Canadians rate pluralism and multiculturalism as our top virtues when Trump and several European populists have turned skin colour into a major fault line of the West.

Anti-immigrant parties are doing well in Britain and across Europe — Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, etc. They are cheered on by Trump who fans the fears of Europe facing “civilizational erasure” and becoming “majority non-European,” i.e. non-white. Far too many mainstream Republicans are proclaiming the United States to be a “Christian nation” and echoing far-right Europeans in asserting that “Christ is king.”

In Canada, however, no overtly anti-immigrant, let alone racist or religion-based party can hope to win a national election or even muster a few seats….

Urback: Woke 1.0 was crazy. And it’s not over yet

Good discussion of how woke should be interpreted and allowance for growth and change: 

… That’s what made, and makes, Woke 1.0 so “crazy,” to borrow Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s characterization. It wasn’t simply the furor with which the public attacked perceived transgressors, or the haste with which punishments were doled out, but the inherent contradiction of the whole find/shame/banish exercise, which was supposed to be about bettering individuals’ social awareness, but left no space for betterment. “Wokeness” is about recognizing racial (and other) privilege, about understanding our own inherent biases, and about acknowledging the structural barriers that disproportionately affect some people more than others. The whole idea is that through learning and growth, we can make a better, fairer society.

But Woke 1.0 made no allowance for growth – neither past nor present. People were defined by singular statements or actions, flattened into one-dimensional caricatures of themselves. Those who transgressed from accepted dogma were booted from their jobs immediately, without time to actually understand why “reverse racism” could be considered a regressive concept. And those who were fired for historical wrongs were made to wear and serve penance for past indiscretions, even if they could demonstrate they were no longer that person.

Indeed, the moment was all about unlearning prejudices (which is why every company suddenly seemed to have a DEI czar onboard), but no one cared to listen if someone claimed to have already unlearned their prejudices….

Terry Newman: Concordia handbook teaches students to hate Canada, the West, police ….

Link to handbook: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13XQ5sTNcXhrcQfRT73ca-PyuYeeZgzHm/view 

Sigh…Good example of woke 1:

…The next part of the handbook is called a “Survival Guide.” The first section is titled, “Ni Canada, ni Quebec” (neither Canada, nor Quebec). It criticizes Prime Minister Mark Carney for evoking Canada’s “glorified settler colonial past” in his recent forward guidance video, and accuses the Liberals of passing a “massive anti-immigration bill giving the state powers to abandon due legal process and to cancel immigration status for migrants at will.”

The handbook also has strong words for two Quebec political parties. It complains that both the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) and Parti Québécois (PQ) are moving toward more right-wing policies, including the CAQ’s banning prayer in public institutions and the PQ’s call for a referendum. It also complains that: “The Quiet Revolution-era promise of a Québécois welfare state and shared prosperity for all is now more or less a thing of the past, abandoned in favour of xenophobic rhetoric and the so-called “defence of Quebecois and Western culture and values.”

The federal government doesn’t escape the handbook’s criticism either. Students are told that the federal government is only more tolerant of minorities than Quebec “on the surface,” and frames the plight of migrants as one in which they are required to accept that “money rules the land, that you’ll be blamed for the political and economic failures of the government, and that your immigration status can be revoked at any time, resulting in your deportation, especially if you protest in solidarity with Palestine….

Elkouri: Blé d’Inde, hijab, colère

Good column:

…Pour les directions scolaires qui ont l’odieux d’appliquer la loi 94, la situation est intenable sur le plan humain.

Comment annoncer à des parents bénévoles appréciés que l’on ne peut plus accepter leur aide ? Quel message leur envoie-t-on ? Quel message cela envoie-t-il à leurs enfants ?

« Ça nous écœure. On a honte », me confiait la directrice d’une école primaire de la grande région montréalaise. Car cela va fondamentalement à l’encontre des valeurs d’inclusion de la société québécoise.

Comment accepter que l’école québécoise inclusive devienne un lieu d’exclusion ?

Étonnamment, en pleine campagne électorale, cet enjeu qui suscite de vives inquiétudes est passé sous silence.

À la veille des élections, Joanne espère que son cri du cœur nourrira la réflexion et servira surtout à ramener un peu d’amour, d’inclusion et de bon sens dans un monde qui en a bien besoin.

Je l’espère aussi.

Moderate new Muslim group aims to broaden dialogue beyond certain ‘politically charged issues’

Will be interesting to see how active and influential this organization will become:

There are roughly two million Muslims in Canada. But they don’t see themselves in conversations being held in their name in Ottawa, says a leader of the new Muslim Policy Institute (MPI).

The MPI, launched this month, is dedicated to including Canadian Muslims in the dialogue that shapes policy about how they live.

“The questions MPI cares about most, like belonging, opportunity, the pressures families are facing, and what Muslim Canadians actually prioritize, are often overlooked. Meanwhile, the national conversation keeps circling one or two politically charged issues,” said Nika Jabiyeva, the institute’s managing director of operations and partnerships, told National Post.

Jabiyeva said research last year revealed that although Islamophobia was a concern for the community, bigger concerns for Muslim Canadians, like most Canadians in general, were the cost of living and housing.

MPI “doesn’t claim to represent two million people,” she said. The group’s purpose is to learn “what shapes Muslim Canadian life and identity, from youth and professionals to women in leadership and elders, and bringing that to the public and into policy.”…

Immigrants aren’t a monolithic voting bloc in Alberta’s referendum on secession

Immigrants, both overall and within different groups, are never monolithic with considerable variation:

The temptation to portray immigrants as a monolithic pro-Confederation voting bloc, therefore, ignores the complexity of their experience, concerns, and aspirations. Consequently, in this referendum, both sides of the separation debate would be advised to acknowledge that newcomers are neither automatic defenders of the Confederation nor guaranteed supporters of the independence campaign. They are a diverse and evolving constituency whose political choices are formed by the same mixture of fears, hopes and interests that influence every voter.

This referendum may actually prove that the voices of Alberta’s immigrants may not be the loudest in the public square, but they could prove decisive in shaping the province’s political future.

Innocent Madawo is a political commentator based in Edmonton.

Khan: Canadians must not stand for the notwithstanding clause’s pre-emptive use

We will see where the SCC ends up, hopefully with some guardrails given excessive invocation:

…Canada’s judicial system and Charter of Rights say otherwise. When a provincial or federal legislature proposes a law that a court has ruled would deny Canadians of their fundamental freedoms, legal rights or equality rights, it can invoke the notwithstanding clause to override the order. Legislatures can also deny those affected the ability to plead their case before the courts by invoking the clause pre-emptively, as Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec have done or have threatened to do.

The Supreme Court of Canada has deemed such pre-emptive use legal. But is it just? Quebec’s Bill 21, which the legislature shielded with a pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause in 2019, has been making its way through Canada’s courts. It is now being considered by the Supreme Court – but not because it might violate fundamental individual freedoms. Instead, the case is being heard because it allegedly violates English-language minority rights, which the clause cannot override.

The Supreme Court will also hear a case from Saskatchewan in which the government used the clause pre-emptively to remove any challenge to a law requiring parental consent for students under 16 to use preferred pronouns at school. Unlike the courts in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, though, Saskatchewan’s appellate court said that it would examine the case despite the clause being used, and let the public know how it violates fundamental freedoms. Pretty bold on its part, in contrast to the helplessness shown by courts in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. And now Canada’s highest court will decide whether lower courts can do the same: step in and issue a declaration when a Canadian is not allowed to argue for basic freedoms.

So here we are. You can fight a traffic ticket in court; people accused of serious crimes have their day in court to mount a vigorous defence. And yet, our Charter not only allows our legislators the absolute power to override basic rights, it grants the power to deny any opportunity to fight against those violations. It feels Kafkaesque – but the better descriptor might be Trumpian, in how it bullies the powerless. How ironic that Canadians appear largely united in our displeasure with that man, yet accept a system that allows governments to take our vulnerable minorities’ freedoms away without legal recourse….

Amnesty International: Black communities in Canada say reparatory justice must be enshrined in new UN rights declaration

Some issues are more specific to Blacks, some are more generic to all minorities and are class, not identity based. Some are just unrealistic, politically, and are unlikely to change the reality on the ground.

  • Establish an independent Black Equity Commissioner with enforcement authority and protection from political interference
  • Mandate disaggregated race-based data collection under community-controlled governance frameworks grounded in Black data sovereignty
  • Recognize collective rights of historic Black communities, including the ancestral land and cultural rights of African Nova Scotians
  • Invest in Black-led infrastructure through independent institutions, legal-defence capacity, and stable multi-year funding
  • Regulate artificial intelligence and surveillance technologies to eliminate anti-Black bias, including through independent equity audits and meaningful representation in technology governance
  • Reform education systems to centre Black Canadian history, identity, and culturally responsive teaching
  • Address barriers facing Black newcomers in immigration, housing, credential-recognition, and access to culturally appropriate supports

“Black communities in Toronto, Nova Scotia, and Ottawa gave their time and trust to this process, knowing how often consultation has ended without action,” said Lerato Chondoma, a director with the Black Canadians Civil Society Coalition. “They have brought clarity and good faith; the obligation now rests with governments. We call on Canada to show publicly, with timelines and benchmarks, how and when it will act on the recommendations contained in the report.

McWhorter: When White People Like Hannah Gann Pretend to Be Black

Another interesting discussion:

… These cases suggest a subtype of modern white identity. For this person, the commitment to contesting the evil of whiteness is all-consuming, an ideological North Star that orients her entire worldview. It is an extreme expression of the outlook that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called “Woke 1,” in which the world is always neatly divided into wicked white oppressors and virtuous nonwhite victims. For a white person with these beliefs, it is a short step to wanting not to be white, to escape the original sin of that privilege.

To be the victim is to be not just innocent but also more interesting. It also can provide a sense of meaning in a modern world that no longer gives ready answers to the question of life’s purpose. “Who am I? What am I for? I’m … Black!” The decision may be eccentric — skin darkening as part of your morning routine? — but it is hardly counterintuitive….

Modern cases like Gann’s are something else. And because the fetishizing of Blackness and the reviling of whiteness is a natural outgrowth of our progressive intelligentsia’s worldview, I see little that will stop them from appearing from time to time. While Krug disappeared from public life, Dolezal presses on in her simulation, and recently said she’d like to sit down for a meal with Gann. Perhaps Gann, too, will ultimately decide that her self-identification as Black and Palestinian is valid, regardless of biology and family history.

This sort of thing will remain rare but never go extinct — no more perplexing than the occasional four-leaf clover. Get ready for another case in a year or three.

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A major immigration reform bill is now law in Canada. Some worry it rolls back refugee rights

2026/04/01 Leave a comment

No surprise that it is likely to be challenged and we will see how the courts rule, whether purely theoretically or with some practical understanding:

A major bill reforming immigration powers is now law in Canada, giving Ottawa powers to mass cancel groups of visas and setting  time limits on asylum claims in the name of bringing immigration numbers under control.

But the legislation,  passed Thursday,  has also raised concerns from a coalition of civil society groups, including Amnesty International, immigration lawyers and public sector unions, that says it places too much authority in the government’s hands and is vowing to fight it. 

“Bill C-12 attacks the rights of refugees and migrants,” Julia Sande, a lawyer specializing in privacy and migrant rights at Amnesty International Canada, said in an interview with CBC News. “It makes it harder for people to have their claims for refugee protection fairly assessed, so it puts people at risk of being deported to face persecution and torture.”

She said the mass-cancellation powers, “without any sort of individualized assessment,” amount to shirking Canada’s international legal obligations. 

Adam Sadinsky, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, called C-12 “the most significant rollback of refugee rights in more than a decade.”

He said he has no doubt the legislation “will ultimately end up before the courts to make a decision on its constitutionality,” and said he believes refugee and immigration lawyers across Canada are advising their clients and mulling whether they have cases that would form “the basis of a challenge.”

Sadinsky and Sande’s groups are part of the broader coalition, which includes the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council and public sector unions like the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

‘A dangerous path’

In a statement, the coalition warned the bill sets “current and future governments on a dangerous path by limiting the ability to seek refugee protection in Canada, […] and facilitating the sharing of personal information within and outside the country.”

The law will cancel out thousands of refugee claims, as it also retroactively bars those who came to Canada more than a year prior from filing claims with the Immigration and Refugee Board. 

Retroactive to June 24, 2020, and applying to claims made on or after June 3, 2025, the legislation would see some 19,000 applications dismissed, according to testimony by Immigration Minister Lena Diab to a Canadian Senate committee.

As for its necessity to acquire mass-cancellation powers, the government has cited hypothetical events out of its control such as wars or pandemics. It has also spoken about possible fraud in hypothetical scenarios.

However, based on internal IRCC documents, CBC News reported last fall that the department was concerned about “country-specific challenges” due to fraudulent visitor visa applications from India and Bangladesh. …

Source: A major immigration reform bill is now law in Canada. Some worry it rolls back refugee rights

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

People from African, Caribbean countries face harsher treatment by immigration system, study finds

2026/02/17 Leave a comment

Think this study needs more context in understanding the differences as some of this may reflect valid risk factors:

…CBSA data cited in the report and obtained by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch under freedom-of-information laws show that in 2019, the majority of detainees held for a month or longer were from African and Caribbean countries. 

Publicly available data from the CBSA and the Immigration and Refugee Board indicate that the overall number of people held in immigration detention, as well as the length of their detention, has declined in recent years: the vast majority of detainees are released within 30 days, the study notes.

However, over the past decade, nearly 60,000 people – including hundreds of children – have been placed in immigration detention, the study’s analysis of Canada Border Services Agency data found.

The CBSA can detain non-citizens, including permanent residents and foreign nationals, who are believed to be inadmissible to Canada. The factors the border agency considers include whether the person may pose a public-safety risk or is a possible flight risk.

Over that past decade, fewer than 10 per cent of immigration detainees were arrested because they were deemed a danger to the public or because of serious criminality, the data show. 

The same proportion were held because of questions about their identity documents or because a border agent needed more information to complete an immigration examination.

The vast majority – around 80 per cent – were held because border agents deemed them unlikely to appear at future immigration proceedings. 

Source: People from African, Caribbean countries face harsher treatment by immigration system, study finds

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Ottawa has duty to ensure welfare of Canadians in ICE custody, advocates say

2025/08/16 Leave a comment

Valid question but government always faces such criticism with respect to consular services:

The growing number of Canadian citizens detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is disturbing and raises questions about whether Ottawa is doing enough to ensure the well-being of Canadians in custody, experts say, after revelations that Canadian children as young as two years old have been held for weeks in immigration detention this year….

Julia Sande, a lawyer with Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section, said The Globe’s findings are “horrifying and deeply disturbing.” She said the Canadian government’s comments are cause for significant concern.

“What does due process look like for a toddler?” she said. “Canada can say it can’t interfere in other countries, but what steps is Canada taking to ensure that its citizens, including its toddler citizens’ rights are being upheld?” she said….

Sharry Aiken, a professor at Queen’s University Faculty of Law, said the use of immigration detention in the U.S. has long been concerning, but the Trump administration has introduced a “dramatic intensification” of the practice. 

That includes detaining long-time residents of the United States.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, had told The Globe in a statement that: “Allegations of subprime conditions at these facilities are FALSE.” …

Ottawa human-rights lawyer Paul Champ said that although there may be standards on paper, consular assistance for Canadian detainees abroad is, in his experience representing Canadians detained abroad, inconsistent, opaque and influenced by the politics between the two countries in question.

“These reports of the conditions of confinement are quite appalling, and Canada should be seriously concerned about that and taking action,” he said….

Source: Ottawa has duty to ensure welfare of Canadians in ICE custody, advocates say

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Critic calls out border bill’s proposed new cabinet powers on immigration

2025/06/07 1 Comment

As expected. Suspect that the over-reach of the Bill with respect to civil liberties will over shadow concerns of immigration and refugee advocates:

An NDP critic says a provision in the federal government’s border security bill that would give cabinet the power to cancel immigration documents looks like an attempt to “mimic” measures deployed by the Trump administration in the U.S.

“It seems to me … this piece of legislation is Canada’s attempt to mimic some of those measures that the United States is adopting. I actually never thought that this day would come where Canada would go down that road,” B.C. NDP MP Jenny Kwan told The Canadian Press.

“However, it is here, and meanwhile the government is saying, ‘Don’t worry, trust us.’”

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said that the immigration minister would only be able to exercise the power to cancel, suspend or alter immigration documents in an “emergency” and after being granted the authority through an order-in-council.

“The tools are in place to ensure the minister of immigration has additional tools to ensure that in a modern era, for example, whether it’s a pandemic or issues around cybersecurity, she will have the tools to make those decisions,” Anandasangaree said during debate on the bill Thursday.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said the legislation contains several “poison pills” that threaten people’s civil liberties. 

This includes the ability for Canadian Security Intelligence Service and police to access customer information from online service providers in certain circumstances.

“The government has not shown Canadians any specific situation, any specific evidence or circumstance in granular detail about why we should be giving up our civil liberties to a government that unlawfully used the Emergencies Act,” Rempel Garner said during Thursday’s debate.

This is in reference to to a 2024 Federal Court ruling that found the government’s use of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable to breakup the 2022 “Freedom Convoy” protests against COVID-19 public health measures.

The government has appealed this ruling. 

Bloc Québécois MP Claude DeBellefeuille said that her party plans to support the bill at second reading so it can be studied by the public safety committee.

Speaking in French, she said the bill needs to be examined closely because it looks to give new powers to government ministers, law enforcement and even Canada Post.

Immigration Minister Lena Diab said Wednesday the legislation is designed to address “one-off” situations like a pandemic or some other “exceptional circumstance.”

“I think people, Canadians should feel safe that we are putting in all these safeguards, but again, as I said, it’s all part of protecting our country and protecting our system that we value and protecting people that come here because we want to ensure that they are successful as well,” Diab said.

Bill C-2 also proposes giving the immigration minister the power to pause the acceptance of new immigration applications and cancel or pause processing of the current inventory of applications in the event of an emergency.

Julia Sande, a human rights lawyer with Amnesty International Canada, said immigration applicants could lose a lot of money because the legislation doesn’t oblige the government to refund affected people.

“People give up their entire lives, in some cases, their life savings or their family’s life savings. People go into debt just to be able to come here,” she said. “And so to have the government be able to pull the rug out from under wide groups of people is concerning.”

Kwan said the proposed new powers are problematic because cabinet decisions are made in secret and there’s no firm definition of an “emergency” in the legislation.

“I don’t accept that the Liberals say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re the good guys, so trust us.’ I’m sorry, that is just not acceptable,” she said, adding there’s no way to know what a future government might do with this power.

The text of the legislation says that if the minister “is of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so,” they may trigger the power to cancel, suspend or alter immigration documents through a cabinet order.

“They’re saying in an emergency, but that’s not what’s written. They said if they’re in the opinion that it’s in the public interest … that could really be anything,” Sande said.

“In the fall, we saw migrants and refugees being scapegoated for the housing crisis. And so, you know, what’s in the public interest?”

Last year, then-immigration minister Marc Miller said plans to reduce the number of permanent and temporary visas issued would help stabilize the housing market.

U.S. President Donald Trump has used national security as justification for a host of immigration measures that involve detaining and deporting people, including university students who have condemned the war in Gaza.

Sande said the proposed bill “attacks” the right to seek asylum by making it harder for migrants to make a claim if they are entering Canada from the U.S., or have been in the country for more than a year.

“They’re talking about fentanyl, they’re talking about guns and then all of a sudden they’re attacking the right to asylum,” Sande said.

“They are completely different things and it’s difficult for civil society, for experts to respond when there’s so many things going on.”

Source: Critic calls out border bill’s proposed new cabinet powers on immigration

Filed under C-3, Citizenship Tagged with , , , , ,

Human-rights groups outraged at plan to detain immigrants in federal prison

2024/04/19 Leave a comment

Expected:

Human-rights groups are expressing outrage at government plans to lock up immigrants who have not been convicted of a crime in federal prisons.

Tuesday’s federal budget proposes changes to the law to allow people facing deportation deemed to be high risk – including posing a potential flight risk or a threat to public safety – to be incarcerated in federal prison.

The move follows the decision by provinces to end immigration-detention agreements with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to house immigrants in their jails this year…

Source: Human-rights groups outraged at plan to detain immigrants in federal prison

And the Minister’s response:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller confirmed to Radio-Canada that the federal government will be using its penitentiaries to hold some foreign nationals for immigration purposes.

He said those detainees will be separated from the prison population, but that both groups could be sharing services.

“It would be separate housing and it would not be in the general population, because they are not criminals,” Miller said, following Radio-Canada’s story on the government’s proposal buried at the bottom of the federal budget tabled Tuesday.

The Trudeau government wrote it wants to “enable the use of federal correctional facilities for the purpose of high-risk immigration detention.”

The statement has angered human rights organizations, some calling the plan “completely unacceptable,” as reported by Radio-Canada Wednesday.

Source: Immigration minister responds to critics over plan to detain migrants in penitentiaries

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Closing Roxham Road will lead to ‘humanitarian catastrophes,’ immigration experts warn

2023/03/27 Leave a comment

We will see. Not everyone who crossed at Roxham Road, relatively risk-free, will uudertake the greater risk now that all crossings will now be subject to the STCA. A natural experiment in progress, and the current situation was untenable politically:

Quebec immigration experts say closing Roxham Road to asylum seekers may go against Canada’s international obligations and could result in more deaths at the border, after an already deadly year.

Two men died attempting to cross the Canadian border within two months of each other.

The first, 43-year-old Fritznel Richard, was trying to reach his family in Florida in time for the holidays. His body was found in early January. The second, Jose Leos Cervantes, 45, was also heading into the United States on Feb. 19, and collapsed just as U.S. border patrollers approached him and the two people he was with, shortly after they had made it into Vermont.

Richard and Leos Cervantes were crossing into the States, whereas people taking the Roxham Road unofficial border crossing south of Montreal are coming into Canada. Experts say the very reason the crossing became popular is because it is accessible and safe. They worry its closure will simply lead people to take the kinds of risks that have resulted in the deaths of people heading south.

“The global result of this is just more danger, more deaths and more humanitarian catastrophes,” said Mireille Paquet, an assistant professor of political science at Concordia University.

Details of the deal reached between Canada and the U.S. to close Roxham Road leaked to various media outlets over the course of Wednesday afternoon, hours before U.S President Joe Biden was set to arrive in Ottawa for his two-day visit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Friday’s agreement between the prime minister and Biden, which actually dates to April 2022, evokes an evolving global approach to surging migration: widening legal pathways while cutting off the irregular ones.

Radio-Canada reports the closure will take effect at midnight.

Details of the agreement were released Friday afternoon in a joint statement made by the two leaders.

The statement says the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection “enshrines our belief that irregular migration requires a regional approach centred on expanding legal pathways and humane border management and recognizes that we must address the underlying economic and security drivers of migration.”

Under this principle, Canada will welcome an additional 15,000 migrants on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere over the course of the year to continue expanding safe, regular pathways as an alternative to irregular migration.

Before the meeting, the L.A. Times and Le Devoir reported that migrants who are caught within 14 days of making it across the border into Canada outside of official checkpoints would be deported. Those details were not released in the joint statement.

Prior to the joint statement’s release, Stéphanie Valois, the president of the Quebec association of immigration lawyers (AQAADI), said the deal could go against international conventions Canada has signed.

Those agreements stipulate that refugees “should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom,” according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees website.

Valois said it’s unlikely that closing Roxham — where an RCMP post has been set up to briefly detain and process asylum seekers — will stop people from crossing altogether, and that it would only prompt migrants to go into hiding after arriving in Canada.

“It seems completely counter-productive to me,” she said.

‘Worst scenario possible’

Paquet noted that 15,000 is a low number compared to the amount of asylum seekers other countries, such as the U.S. and Germany, accept every year, as well as in comparison to the nearly 40,000 migrants, primarily from Haiti, Turkey, Colombia, Chile, Pakistan and Venezuela, who crossed at Roxham Road in 2022.

There are currently 4.6 million people seeking asylum across the world, according the UNHCR’s latest figures.

Accepting migrant crossings at the border does not mean accepting them to stay permanently, she said, echoing Valois, but accepting to heart “their story and their request for protection,” as outlined in the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees signed in 1951.

“This is closing the passage, but it’s also turning our backs on our international commitments,” Paquet said.

Frantz André has helped hundreds of asylum seekers after arriving in Quebec through Roxham Road. He flew to Florida in late January to bring Fritznel Richard’s ashes to his wife Guenda and to attend Richard’s funeral in Naples.

André struggled to believe the deal, which would in effect mean Canada will no longer accept asylum seekers at the border, if they already made a claim in the U.S.

“There’s no way — I mean, that’s ridiculous,” he said. “We’re simply creating the worst scenario possible.”

Source: Closing Roxham Road will lead to ‘humanitarian catastrophes,’ immigration experts warn

Another article, with USA activist perspectives:

Closing the northern U.S. border to asylum seekers bound for Canada solves a political problem for Justin Trudeau, but immigration advocates denounced it Friday as a “shameful” decision that will only endanger lives.

Friday’s agreement between the prime minister and President Joe Biden, which actually dates to April 2022, evokes an evolving global approach to surging migration: widening legal pathways while cutting off the irregular ones.

But making it harder than ever for migrants to claim asylum will only encourage them to undertake ever more dangerous journeys, said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas at Refugees International.

“Asylum is getting more and more restricted in the United States, so not having a way to get to Canada to ask for asylum is a big cut-off,” Schacher said.

“The problems with the U.S. asylum system and access to asylum in the United States are already getting worse, so there’s all the more need for this pathway to Canada, which is now being cut off.”

Biden and Trudeau have agreed to a supplement to the 2004 treaty known as the Safe Third Country Agreement, which governs asylum claims by migrants crossing the Canada-U.S. border.

The treaty expressly forbids such claims at official entry points, but was silent on other unofficial border crossings — a big reason why Canada has seen for years thousands of would-be claimants slipping into the country at junctures like Roxham Road in Quebec, where they can request asylum without fear of being returned to the U.S.

That all changes as of early Saturday morning, when the supplement — the “Additional Protocol 2022” — takes effect, extending the terms of the treaty so they apply along the full extent of the nearly 9,000-kilometre frontier.

The extension runs afoul of commitments both leaders have made to respect the rights of people who are in need of asylum, said Savitri Arvey, a senior policy adviser with the Women’s Refugee Commission.

“Overall, it represents a continuation of various steps that the Biden administration has taken to block access to asylum,” Arvey said. “It inevitably impacts the most vulnerable and forces them to take even more dangerous routes.”

The two countries have already agreed to the new protocol, which will require amendments to existing U.S. regulations, according to a draft order posted Friday on the U.S. Federal Register.

It will ensure the agreement applies to “individuals who cross between the official (points of entry) along the U.S.-Canada shared border, including certain bodies of water as determined by the United States and Canada.”

Canada has agreed as part of the deal to welcome an additional 15,000 migrants from across the Western Hemisphere this year — a figure that towers over the paltry 4,000 they agreed to last June at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.

Migrants have been flooding Roxham Road in recent years; more than 39,000 asylum claims were filed in 2022 by people who were intercepted by the RCMP, the vast majority of them in Quebec.

Rema Jamous Imseis, the UN Refugee Agency’s representative to Canada, acknowledged in a statement the challenges posed by the sheer scale of migrants arriving in both countries.

The agency “urges all governments to keep in mind their obligation to provide haven to those fleeing conflict, violence or persecution.”

Amnesty International Canada was decidedly less diplomatic, condemning the decision as “shameful” and “an affront to the rights of refugee claimants seeking safety in Canada.”

There’s nothing like the same number of would-be claimants moving south from Canada into the U.S., prompting questions about the political upside for Biden — who has much larger migration headaches at the Mexico-U.S. border.

One thing is clear, said Schacher: the agreement “will benefit Canada much more than the U.S. Trudeau is winning on this deal.”

One emerging theory revolves around Title 42, the pandemic-era public health measure imposed in March 2020 that gave the U.S. broad power to expel migrants for fear of the spread of COVID-19.

The Biden administration’s original plan to was to rescind the measure on May 23, 2022 — less than six weeks after U.S. regulatory documents say the supplement to the Safe Third Country Agreement was signed on April 15.

A lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys-general, however, forced the U.S. to cancel its original plan to revoke Title 42. It’s now slated to end May 11.

“We are very concerned that following May 11, the plan (at the southern border) is for a proposed rule that would block asylum seekers who had transited through other countries,” Arvey said.

“The comment period for the proposed rule actually closed on Monday, and we know the intention is for that to go into place on May 11. So there are some parallels there for sure.”

The U.S. has long been preoccupied with ensuring parity between north and south in its border measures, fuelling speculation that the Canada-U.S. agreement could be in anticipation of new post-Title 42 measures.

“I think it might be something like, ‘Well, we have to think about parity between the way we treat like Mexico and Canada,'” Schacher said.

Canada, too, has a lot of international credibility on migration issues, she added, and could be a big help in selling a new “managed migration paradigm” for the hemisphere that puts the emphasis on legal pathways.

“That would be a big deal for the Biden administration, because Canada is seen as even more progressive on refugee issues generally than the United States.”

Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, called the new deal an “unfortunate development” for asylum seekers.

Source: Canada-U.S. deal on migration will limit safe options for asylum seekers: advocates

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Canada has turned back 4,400 asylum seekers in 5 years

2020/11/25 Leave a comment

Of note. A bit less than the 55,000 or so that crossed the border:

Canada has turned away at least 4,400 asylum seekers at the U.S. border since 2016 — including some who were hoping to find refuge here at the height of the global pandemic — according to newly released government figures.

Nearly half of those trying to enter Canada over that five-year period made the attempt in the year after U.S. President Donald Trump took office, according to figures released in response to a parliamentary request from NDP MP Jenny Kwan.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which has been in effect since 2004, Canada and the U.S. consider each other to be “safe countries” for refugees and require them to make their claims in the country they arrive in first.

The agreement has long faced criticism and legal challenges from refugee advocacy groups, who say the agreement is an inhumane way to limit the number of people Canada accepts as refugees. They say the U.S. is not a safe country for all refugees and that the dangers they face have increased under the Trump administration.

The federal government is appealing a Federal Court ruling earlier this year that found the STCA infringed Charter rights.

The figures provided to Kwan show there was a spike in the number of asylum seekers turned back at the border after Trump was elected in 2016 and took office in 2017.

In 2016 there were 742 people turned back at the border. That figure jumped to 1,992 in 2017. There were 744 denied entry in 2018 and 663 in 2019.

Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 23 this year — a period which captures the height of the first wave of COVID-19 — 259 people were turned back at the border.

‘Even more precarious’

Kwan called that “really disturbing.”

“In the face of a pandemic, things are even more precarious for people who need to get to safety and Canada actually did not hesitate to turn people back,” she said.Kwan said the Trump administration imposed detention and deportation policies that violated international human rights and provoked widespread fear among refugees. By turning away asylum seekers, Canada is “complicit” in the violation of their rights, she said.

Kwan said Canada should immediately suspend the STCA and work to negotiate a new agreement with U.S. president-elect Joe Biden that addresses human rights issues. But she said the “aggressive and intense” detention policies could linger.

“I think even with the Biden administration, that policy may still continue to exist, and even if the Biden administration wants to make changes, it’s not going to happen overnight,” she said.

Mary-Liz Power, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, said the government appealed the Federal Court ruling because it believes there were errors in key findings of fact and law.

She said the decision mistakenly suggests that all asylum claimants who are ineligible under the STCA and turned back to the U.S. are automatically detained as a penalty. She also noted that the U.S. remains a party to the UN Refugee Convention.

Refugee pact ‘fair, compassionate’: Blair spokesperson

“The STCA, which has served Canada well for 16 years, ensures that those whose lives are in danger are able to claim asylum at the very first opportunity in a safe country,” she said.

“We are in continuous discussions with the U.S. government on issues related to our shared border. We believe that the STCA remains a comprehensive vehicle for the fair, compassionate and orderly handling of asylum claims in our two countries.”

As for the spike in numbers in 2017, Power said that 2017-2018 recorded the highest number of globally displaced individuals since the Second World War.

Justin Mohammed, human rights law and policy campaigner for Amnesty International Canada, said a number of factors could have driven that sharp increase, including global patterns and Trump’s policies.

He said Canada should be fulfilling its international obligations under international refugee law at all times — even during a pandemic, when safety concerns are heightened.

Mohammed pointed to exemptions made for students, family reunification and other immigration classes that allow people to arrive in Canada despite travel restrictions.

“Why are refugees being excluded from that? They’re able to quarantine or be required to have a quarantine plan just like anyone else … so why is there not the ability to be able to provide protection?” he said.

Partial picture

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said the 2020 figures represent only a partial picture of the people turned back to the U.S. because of added restrictions after the border closed March 20.

At that time, refugee claimants were denied entry on public health grounds whether they arrived at an official point of entry or at another crossing — such as Roxham Road in Quebec — where the STCA does not normally apply.

Despite assurances the Canadian government says it received from the U.S. that refugee claimants directed back would not be subject to enforcement such as detention or removal, Dench said refugee advocates in Canada know of at least two people who were detained in the U.S. after being directed back.

Conservative immigration critic Raquel Dancho said the Liberal record on administering the refugee and asylum system was one of “mismanagement, years-long backlogs and failure,” even before the pandemic.

“Conservatives have long been calling on the government to close illegal border crossings and work with their American counterparts to close the longstanding loopholes in the Safe Third Country Agreement so that refugee and asylum seekers have a fair, compassionate and effective pathway to come to Canada,” she said in a statement.

Source: Canada has turned back 4,400 asylum seekers in 5 years

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Rights groups call for oversight of Canada border agency

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

Another due process pressure point on the Government:

Civil society groups proposed a model Thursday for independent oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency, following the deaths of two immigration detainees in March.

Recent revelations that the CBSA had fully implemented just one of the 19 recommendations from a coroner’s inquest examining the 2013 death of Lucia Vega Jimenez at the Vancouver airport are another indication that the border agency is in need of oversight, said Josh Paterson of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

The CBSA is the only law enforcement agency in Canada that has no independent oversight body, noted Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers president Mitch Goldberg, even though officers generally have more power and less training than police.

An oversight body for the CBSA would need to be independent of political influence and have legal power to both investigate and monitor CBSA activities, said Canadian Council for Refugees president Loly Rico. The council has proposed a model for a CBSA oversight body, recommending that it have the ability to receive and review complaints from citizens and non-citizens about their interactions with the CBSA, compel CBSA to share information, and make recommendations to the Public Safety Minister.

Canada has been criticized by three United Nations agencies in the last four years over its treatment of immigration detainees, said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada. Some of the practices criticized by the United Nations included the practice of keeping children in detention, the lack of a limit under Canadian law on the amount of time an individual can be detained, and the country’s extensive use of immigration detention, when it should be a last resort, Neve said.

“That is a very strong signal that Canada’s immigration detention system is broken,” he said, adding that it is “unconscionable” that there is no independent oversight of CBSA.

Source: Rights groups call for oversight of Canada border agency

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