Maytree Conversations

by Peter Showler, Director, the Refugee Forum

A report on legal aid for refugees (PDF), just released by the Refugee Forum, highlights the challenges facing refugee claimants under Canada’s new refugee regime introduced by Bill C-31. The bill was passed last June and is due to be implemented by the end of the year or early January.

The Refugee Forum report charts the limited legal aid support now available to refugee claimants and underlines the tremendous challenges facing legal aid administrations under the new refugee claim system when the process will be much faster and the need for legal representation greater. Legal aid is provided by the provinces with some federal contribution to legal aid funds.

Here are some of the salient points in the report:

• Only five of the ten provinces now provide legal aid to refugee claimants
• Ontario has the greatest proportion of claims (62%), followed by Quebec and B.C.
• All five legal aid regimes provide limited legal aid funding, screening legal aid applicants for financial eligibility and potential merit of their claim
• There are no obvious ways to do merit screening for claimants under the new system when written claims must be submitted within 15 days.

The report’s section on Ontario provides the best example of the challenges facing refugee claimants. Ontario receives the most claimants (15,120 claims in 2010) and has the most developed legal aid program. Most legal aid service is provided by private lawyers on legal aid certificates working at set tariffs although legal service is also provided by the Refugee Law Office and some community legal clinics.

The report identifies six basic stages in the claim process where refugees will require legal support, which is two more than the current system. It is clear that with smaller budgets, legal aid services will contract while claimant need for service will increase. It is equally clear that Legal Aid Ontario cannot approve certificates quickly enough to realistically meet the rapid timelines to draft the written claim, complete the appeal or prevent the removal of those claimants on a fast track list.

The report also notes that claimants are even more dependent on legal aid support. With the speed of the new system, both the refugee claim and the appeal will be decided before most claimants will be allowed to work to pay for a lawyer.

Ontario has begun to revise its legal aid policies to meet the challenge but its first proposals, introduced on September 6, have not been well received by the refugee bar. Since the deadlines are so short, lawyers are being asked to initiate legal representation without assurance that the claimant will fully qualify for legal aid. Lawyers have objected that they are not only being asked to give their own time for uncertain compensation but must also pay interpretation expenses that may not be reimbursed.

The dilemma for lawyers and legal aid administrations exposes the real costs when a refugee system tries to go too fast. Most experts predict that there will many more unrepresented refugee claimants in the new system and the result will be more judicial errors, more miscarriages of justice, and more legitimate refugees sent home to the risk of persecution.

Download Legal Aid for Refugee Claimants in Canada(PDF) on the Refugee Forum website .

Related:

• Toronto Star: Ontario lawyers stop taking refugee clients on legal aid
• Bill C-31 – Fast but not as fair: Major changes to Canada’s refugee system
• Remembering Rabbi Gunther Plaut
• Press Release: New Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers launched, vow to defend rights of asylum seekers
• Maytree Opinion – Ratna Omidvar: Recent Immigration Changes Deserve Debate

If you work in or follow Canada’s immigration sector, your head might be reeling a bit from the recent number of substantive announcements, press releases and comments coming from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

TVO’s The Agenda recently produced two segments on the proposed changes to Canada’s immigration system and they are well worth your time to watch.

First up: Jason Kenney – Bottom Line Immigration

Overall, this interview brings together a collection of what he’s been saying and has been previously announced. It’s useful as it’s all in one place!  A few interesting points made by Minister Kenney:

• High numbers of temporary foreign workers:
• A high proportion of work permits issued go to foreign students, working holiday/youth program, highly skilled workers here for a short-term stay – not the low-skill, seasonal agricultural workers, as people believe
• Backlog
• He wants to reduce the current backlog to a working inventory in 18 months
• Citizenship by birth – it seems he is suggesting that permanent residents and citizens would still confer citizenship to their children born in Canada
• What does he mean by “transformational change”?
• Moving from a slow, rigid and passive system to fast, flexible and proactive system with better economic results for newcomers
• There are large and growing labour shortages – the bad outcomes are a paradox
• Linking immigrants with the jobs that are available and bringing people in who can work at their skill level
• Economic need is the primary function of immigration, and there is consensus about this
• He also speaks to the issue of putting skilled immigration decisions in the hands of the private sector

Next: The Debate – Realigning Canadian Immigration

This segment featured:

• Audrey Macklin, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
• Arthur Sweetman, Professor of Economics, McMaster University
• Phil Triadafilopoulos, Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of Toronto Scarborough
• Francisco Rico-Martinez, Co-Director, FCJ Refugee Centre
• Binoy Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, The Weekly Voice

Overall, there was a good amount of disagreement about whether changes being proposed are good, bad, or if they even represent real changes. A few interesting points:

• There was some debate over whether these changes are really transformational, or just new expressions of existing trends in immigration.
• These are just continuations of trends we’ve seen since the 1960s and 1980s (Triadafilopoulos)
• Major concerns expressed by panel:
• It’s a move towards, temporary, conditional, provisional status (Macklin)
• It’s changing the culture and ethics of immigration, e.g. Rico-Martinez predicted move to English-speaking source countries and those where credentials likely to be recognized here
• Changes to selection/character of new arrivals will have the most negative impact on those who are one or two steps ahead of them (e.g. recent-ish newcomers). (Sweetman)
• It’s increasing the demonization of newcomers – “bogus” refugees, marriage “fraudsters”, useless to the economy (Macklin)
• Generally positive on admission of mid-skilled workers (trades)
• The romantic myths – about seeking a better life, about selecting country based on ability to sponsor parents and grandparents – are not true. People want a better job. They want their spouse and children only. (Thomas)

Of special note is Arthur Sweetman’s answer to the following question (around 23:30 in the video): Will these changes improve outcomes for Canadians who are already here, and the immigrants who hope to be here?

“Changes, if/when implemented, will help new immigrants who arrive. But whether they’ll help newcomers who are already here is a very different question, and it’s far less clear what will happen.

“As you give more authority, more power to employers, it could be that that increases competition between people who are already here and people who are arriving, especially on the temporary foreign worker side. And it could well be that there is some bidding down of wages for people existing in Canada by competition from new immigrants and from temporary foreign workers.

“Of course, for people who have been here for a long time, or people who were born in Canada, that competition is minimal. The main people who seem to experience competition from new immigrants are the people one or two steps ahead of them in the queue. That is to say, people most similar to them.

“So, it’s not entirely clear that if you give employers new powers that it will be positive for everybody. It might well be for some people in society, people, to use a technical term, who are ‘complements in production’ to the new immigrants, they’re going to benefit. But the people who are ‘substitutes in production’ for the new immigrants, they might well feel some negative consequences.

“We don’t know if that’s going to happen or not, but it might.”

His answer echoes Ratna’s recent Globe and Mail OpEd: “While we look forward to a new immigrant tomorrow, we must keep in mind the immigrant of today.”

Related links:

• Top 10 Canadian Immigration Stories of 2011
• Naomi Alboim – What does the future hold? Recent changes in Canadian immigration
• A reflection on immigration policy: two years after Adjusting the Balance

With files from Bonnie Mah, part of Maytree’s Policy team

“He was a defender of human and civil rights at a time when many didn’t even know its meaning. We stand on the shoulders of such men,” said Bernie Farber, former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut died on February 8, 2012. He was 99 years old. He leaves a lasting legacy for all of us working for social justice, fighting for the vulnerable and marginalized in Canada and across the globe.

In the 1980s, Rabbi Plaut was appointed by the federal government to revise Canada’s refugee legislation.

His report “Refugee Determination in Canada” (1985) examined the different ways an oral hearing system could be implemented for refugees. Known as “The Plaut Report,” the Ottawa Citizen wrote: “His report on refugees speaks to the highest aspirations of citizenship, whether we think of Canada or the world…. Plaut would put dignity into the process – dignity for the refugee, dignity for us. As a refugee from Naziism 50 years ago, he knows what that means.”

At a time when our refugee system is undergoing controversial reforms, it seems all the more important to reflect on his work in helping shape a humanitarian and compassionate refugee determination system in Canada.

Rabbi Plaut was Senior Scholar at Holy Blossom, where he served as Senior Rabbi from 1961 to his retirement in 1977. From 1977 to 1980, he was president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and from 1979 to 1985 he was vice-chairman of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1978, received the Order of Ontario in 1993 and Companion of the Order of Canada in 1999. Rabbi Plaut also helped found Toronto’s Urban Alliance for Race Relations.

CBC’s Evan Solomon interviewed Plaut in 2002

We remember Rabbi Gunther Plaut as a great humanitarian. We all have much to learn from his legacy and teachings.

Read more:

• Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, z’l – November 1, 1912 – February 8, 2012 (Holy Blossom Temple)
• Rabbi Gunther Plaut: Epitome of strength (Toronto Star)
• Books and articles written by Rabbi Plaut
• Sacred call to care for downtrodden (Toronto Star)
• Gunther Plaut put his thwarted judicial talent to good use in the rabbinate (Toronto Star)
• Toronto rabbi ‘paid a price for his courage’ (Ottawa Citizen)
• Rabbi Gunther Plaut remembered as key figure in Reform Judaism (National Post)
• Reform Judaism indebted to Rabbi Gunther Plaut, 99 (Jewish Tribune)
• Video: Eulogy For Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, Z’l – Rabbi Jonathan V. Plaut
• Holy Blossom Temple remembers Rabbi Plaut

(image from Wikipedia)

Canada’s new refugee system, to be implemented on December 1, 2011, will require all refugee claimants to attend a disclosure interview before an officer of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) within 15 days of making their claim.

Critiques of the system suggest that refugee claimants will not have time to receive legal advice to prepare for their first interview. “Asking refugee claimants detailed questions about their claim without legal advice or representation is fundamentally a bad idea. Claimants do not understand the refugee definition or refugee procedures,” explains Peter Showler, Director of the Refugee Forum at the University of Ottawa.

The Access to Justice Fund of the Law Foundation of Ontario has given a grant of $350,000 to the University of Ottawa and the Refugee Forum to undertake a project that will help provide refugee claimants with information about a newly created disclosure interview.

The project

Four professors at the University of Ottawa Law School, in conjunction with the Human Rights Research and Education Centre and the Refugee Forum, will:

• draft written information materials on the disclosure interview (that will be evaluated for effectiveness);
• develop workshops for refugee support workers across Canada; and
• develop a website.

Outreach and community engagement will be done through Maytree and other refugee-serving networks, groups, communities and leaders.

Claimants will receive the information about the interview in pamphlet form as well as directly from community refugee support workers who are most likely to engage claimants in that 15-day period before the interview.

The entire project, including contributions from refugee experts and refugee support agencies, is valued at more than a million dollars.

“Although the challenges of the new refugee system are formidable, we are seeing a lot of different agencies and advocates step up to address those challenges,” says Peter. “We are hopeful that the Refugee Assistance project will help to organize and galvanize effective responses to some of the deficiencies in the new refugee system. It is not a complete solution but it is a good start. We are grateful to the Law Foundation for its support.”

Maytree has a long history of working closely with Peter and the Refugee Forum, including direct support towards its establishment, and we’re very pleased to hear of this grant. Most recently, Peter wrote the Maytree report Fast, Fair and Final: Reforming Canada’s Refugee System. He is also a regular and respected commentator on Canada’s immigration and refugee system.

Related links:

• Refugee Forum
• Fast, Fair and Final: Reforming Canada’s Refugee System
• A fast and fair refugee system: a slogan or a reality?

Judy Broadbent is the Vice Chair of Maytree.

Maytree’s yearly Policy Insights document presents policy proposals prepared by Maytree, its partners and grantees. These recommendations make up the three important “I”s of public policy: ideas, instruments, and investments. They each identify a powerful idea to improve the life of Canadians, the instruments which will be effective in creating that improvement, and the investments that must be made to operationalize the instruments. These recommendations build on the power and potential of public services, and the resiliency of Canadians. You can read a summary of recommendations and download the complete collection of Policy Insights in PDF format. Please share and distribute to your networks.

In 2009, Canada granted permanent residence to almost 23,000 refugees, more than half of whom were recruited overseas through the government’s resettlement program or sponsored by a private group. The remainder were determined to be refugees by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) upon arrival in Canada.

Regardless of how they have arrived in the country, refugees to Canada have experienced adversity and loss. Many have witnessed violence and atrocities; some have been imprisoned and tortured. All know what it is like to live in countries where there is little regard for human rights or human lives.

Many arrive in Canada needing our support and compassion. With some help they are able to demonstrate the depths of their resilience as they carve out a future in their new country. They make new friends, learn new customs and teach us a great deal about true adversity on the one hand and true courage on the other.

It is in Canada’s best interest to ensure these resilient and talented individuals not just integrate – but thrive.

Eliminate the processing fees for refugees

After being accepted as refugees by the IRB through the Inland Refugee Program, refugees have 180 days to submit their application for permanent residence. There is a processing fee of $550 for the principal applicant and $150 for family members under the age of 22. This is a significant financial barrier for refugees who arrive with few resources, particularly young people with no family in Canada.

Some protected persons simply cannot raise the funds before the deadline. In such cases, they are still protected persons and cannot be removed from Canada, but they continue to be treated as a person temporarily in Canada. If protected persons are eventually able to acquire the funds for the processing fee, they may apply for landing on “humanitarian and compassionate” grounds. However, applying through this stream can take several years, acting as a further delay to a protected person’s full integration into Canadian society. It is also an unnecessary financial and administrative burden on government institutions which must process this new application.

About $5.3 million was collected from “Immigration cost–recovery fees for refugees” in 2008-2009. This represents only one percent of fees collected by Citizenship and Immigration and a miniscule amount of the department’s overall budget.

Eliminating the processing fee would entail a straightforward regulatory amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Further reading:

• Making Their Mark: Canada’s Young Refugees
• Policy Brief:  Processing Fees for Refugees (PDF)

We follow a lot of sources and send out links to many articles every day. But we know that your time is limited and you may not be able to follow them all. At the end of each week, we pull out some themes from the week’s headlines that are worth your time. If you’re interested in our daily news coverage (and more), follow us on Twitter.

Refugees – A bit of summer déjà vu

The week saw announcements of “yet another ship of migrants” coming to Canada (Hundreds more Tamil migrants may be headed to Canada, Human smugglers organizing more Canada-bound ships: Minister) with some fear mongering and a response from refugee and human rights advocates.

Coincidentally, but perhaps importantly timed, this week also saw the revealing of Daniel Libeskind’s “Wheel of Conscience” reminding us of our past indifference to the plight of refugees.

Perfectly timed to set the stage for our summer déjà vu is the new BC Metropolis report, Mystery Ships and Risky Boat People: Tamil Refugee Migration in the Newsprint Media – PDF. The report “examines how the Canadian newsprint media portrayed this event and in which policy context this coverage occurred.” The “results show an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees. The press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism and constructed the refugees as risk. Established security, rather than human rights, was the focal point and the immigration system was portrayed both as ‘failing’ and ‘abused’ by ‘bogus claimants.’ This security-oriented framework provided a discursive background for the refugee reform Bill C-11 to be ushered through parliament later that summer.”

An article in the Toronto Sun opens with a sensationalistic headline, Feds link Tamil boat passengers to terrorism, but then includes a more reasonable story: “Canada is a nation of immigrants with a proud tradition of welcoming refugees,” said McCluskey. “Canada will continue to opens its doors to those who work hard and play by the rules. At the same time, every sovereign country has a responsibility to protect its borders.”

While Minister Toew’s suggests that the Canadian public is less supportive of refugee system, refugee advocates suggest that Tories’ tough talk on immigration is “destructive for our society”.  Worth perusing is the Canadian Council for Refugees 2010: A Year in Review, which includes the relevant article: Refugees arriving by boat and Bill C-49: anti-smuggling or anti-refugee?

And, in case we needed the reminder (which, it seems, we certainly do), From Daniel Libeskind, a machine of shame. “George Orwell described in his novel 1984 a bleak vision of the future as ‘a boot stamping on a human face – forever.’ The author had been left shaken by totalitarian violence made possible by bland bureaucrats and fanned by hateful ideologies. It’s those underlying factors that Daniel Libeskind says he was seeking to highlight as he designed a memorial to the St. Louis that is to be unveiled on Thursday in Halifax. The ship carrying nearly 1,000 refugees, mostly German Jews, was turned away from Cuba, the United States and Canada before returning to Europe in 1939.”

If you are looking for some additional depth on the refugee issue, The Refugee Experience Series (TRES) is hosting a lunch discussion with Refugee Sandwich author Peter Showler. Not in Washington, DC? You can join the live web stream – Saturday, February 19, 1-3 pm.

Employment Mobility

This week saw a great deal of press about various forms of labour mobility. In general, mobility refers to the actual movement of labour, but we’re going to look at labour mobility in a broader scope this week.

You’re leaving already? indicates that “more than six out of 10 of the coveted business-class immigrants who declared Quebec as their destination during the early 2000s quickly fled to other provinces, taking their investment dollars and entrepreneurship potential with them. The big winners? Ontario and the two westernmost provinces. B.C. saw a 22 per cent net gain in the number of business-class immigrants who called it home, due to migration from other provinces. Ontario enjoyed a 14.5 per cent bump while Alberta saw a 9.5 per cent increase.”

A new report reveals “a big financial gap among recent immigrants. University research shows that immigrants at the lower edge of the spectrum have experienced wage drops of 30 per cent in recent decades, worse than other Canadians at the bottom end.”  Another report reveals the brain gain, drain & waste of Internationally Educated Health Professionals in Canada.

A new TIEDI report (PDF) indicates that “[w]hile labour market outcomes improve with educational attainment, foreign education may not lead to the same outcomes as a Canadian degree.” Which is to say that “[t]he wage gap between Canadian-born and immigrants is larger for adults with more education.”

The Urban Times pulls this discussion together with a warning about Closing the Borders of the Mind in an Age of Globalization: “What, then, can we expect from 2011 and indeed the rest of the decade, as we experience the ever advancing aging of the population, and the expected increasing diversity of the population and the labour force? Just as the globalization of capital is meeting renewed resistance and pressures for protectionist trade policies in response to the recession, so too is the globalization of labour meeting social resistance as the impact of global labour markets is experienced by societies that are challenged by the new diversity this reality entails. This is resulting in a rise of ‘cultural protectionism’.”

But, lest you begin to think that all is lost, on the diversity and employment mobility front, we saw some promising stories emerge this past week: Indian-born immigrant gets top job at Canada Post – “Indian-born immigrant Deepak Chopra, former president and CEO of Pitney Bowes Canada and Latin America becomes the President and CEO of the country’s government-owned postal service.” And, Korean-born Jeffrey Min expands Galleria grocery chain, creating 120 jobs, wins New Pioneer Award: “Min has earned plenty of recognition: Grocer of the Year awards from the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers in 2009 and 2010, a Business Leader of Character Community Award in 2007 and the Ontario Newcomer Champion Award in 2008.” Awesome news.

The Toronto Star reports that “Toronto 2015 has adopted a diversity policy to encourage opportunities for visible minorities, aboriginals, people with disabilities” for the 2015 Pan Am games. BC Local News reports on a new project that will help make BC business more competitive: “Embracing Cultural Diversity in the B.C. workplace.” The British Telegraph covers a Canadian report that Expat workers ‘shouldn’t hide foreign origins’.

Perhaps you’ve wondered about the importance of diversity leadership and strategy in the workplace? Well, the Conference Board of Canada has some reports, case studies and stories for you read up on.

We’ve bundled all the report/presentation links for you in one handy spot.

When the Komagata Maru arrived at our shores in 1914 with 376 Indians of British descent, Canada set in place a suite of laws designed to keep migrants from India out of Canada.

When the SS St. Louis arrived with over 900 Jewish asylum seekers, the Mackenzie King government took an unofficial position known as “None is too many”.

When new boats carrying more Sikhs arrived in Newfoundland in 1980s, Canada scrambled again to toughen up its refugee laws.

Each incident was accompanied by huge media attention which created a state of acute anxiety, almost hysteria in Canada. This is of course aided by the willingness of politicians and the media to create political advantage and sell the news.

There is something about boats arriving with migrants which really gets to us.

We should put our anxiety about the passengers on the boat aside because today we have robust laws to deal with refugees who arrive looking for protection. These laws are meant to deal with queue-jumpers and with terrorists. Because this is a complex process, if often takes a few years to sort things out.

Unfortunately, the angst and hysteria of the day (which, by the way, totally ignores the reality of Sri Lankan politics) makes it even more difficult to screen the refugees from those that simply pretend to be. The new refugee process enacted into law by the Conservative government earlier this year should speed things along, although, sadly, it is not yet in place. Notwithstanding, Canadians should take pride in the fact that if the system errs, it errs on the side of compassion.

Of far greater concern to us should be those criminals who are behind this sorry story of human smuggling and trafficking – the owners and crew of the ship. We should be focusing our attention on them, instead of scapegoating the passengers.