Where do we actually stand on this issue?
Canada likes to pride itself for being progressive on refugee issues, but is it really as kind and open to refugees as we would like to believe?
The saddening story of Alan Kurdi has raised some doubts about Canada’s self-image. Tima Kurdi had attempted to sponsor her brother Mohammed and his family to come to Canada, but did not have enough money to bring Abdullah, her other brother. As a result, they had to wait, despite the dangers of their current situation. However, due to changing circumstances, Abdullah and his family could no longer afford to wait and joined thousands of other refugees by boarding a boat to Europe. In a cruel twist of fate, Abdullah was the only survivor—his wife and children drowned. His son Alan’s corpse was later photographed at a popular tourist beach in Bodrum, Turkey. His small body lifeless and limp, Alan could have easily been asleep. But like his mother and brother—and thousands of other migrants—he is dead, one of the many victims of First World indifference.
In Europe and in Canada, refugees have mostly been seen as someone else’s problem. Under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, the media has continued to parrot that Canada “remains a model of humanitarian action” and that we are “the most generous country to refugees in the world.”
In reality, however, Canada’s refugee policy is not as generous as it may initially appear. Red tape and the spectre of “incomplete applications” have made it especially difficult for refugees to come to Canada, leading to disastrous consequences, as in the case of the Kurdis. Especially since the Conservative government passed Bill C-31 in 2012, Canada has become increasingly hostile to refugees. According to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, C-31 was designed to “combat human smuggling and to ensure that the asylum system is ‘fast and fair’.” Framed as a way of protecting Canada from “criminals” and “unfounded refugee claims,” the law required mandatory detention for refugees deemed “irregular arrivals,” including children, although this was later struck down by the Federal Court. Accordingly, costs from detaining migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers have exploded over the last couple of years. Especially disturbing is the high number of children in detention. Based on the statistics, between 196 and 287 people below the age of seventeen have been detained with their parents or family between 2010-11 and 2013-14 with an additional seventeen to thirty-one detained without adult accompaniment during the same time intervals.
The way Canada has treated refugees has also come under scrutiny, especially in the case of thirty-nine-year-old Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan, a diabetic, mentally ill Somali refugee who died in prison. Hassan had severe schizophrenia and had been accepted as a refugee in Canada in the mid 1990s. In 2012, after an assault conviction, he was jailed and because he was deemed a threat to the Canadian public, he was incarcerated and subject to deportation to Somalia. He had little to no prospect for release.
Hassan is only one example. According to the University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s “We Have No Rights” report, seven thousand migrants were incarcerated in Canada last year alone. Many of these migrants are extremely vulnerable and are already suffering from mental illness, as exemplified by Hassan. Uday, for example, also has schizophrenia. In his case, he had no criminal record but was detained for nearly three years in two maximum-security Ontario jails because the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) was not able to confirm his country of origin or his identity. As such, they determined that he was a risk to the public. After being released, he has been recognized as de facto stateless. To this day, he remembers how detention had negatively impacted his mental health. While incarcerated, he and the others “had no rights at all [and] they treat[ed] us like garbage.”
As lawyers in training, we should be concerned about this refugee crisis, especially as it relates to access to justice for marginalized communities and the relationship between legal red tape and the disastrous circumstances it can affect in people’s lives. As Dean Sossin has made clear in his announcements, the Osgoode community has already begun to show interest in responding to the crisis. There have been members raising money for tents and train tickets in Hungary, as well as others who have been offering pro bono legal services in Toronto. Our university, along with other GTA universities, have also begun to raise funds for sponsorship and have committed to supporting volunteers. As students, we can do much to promote change and awareness about the current refugee crisis, not only in Canada, but also on the international stage.
This article was published as part of the Osgoode chapter of Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR) media series, which aims to promote an awareness of international human rights issues.
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