CANADA’S REFUGEE AND IMMIGRATION PROGRAMS

FAIL TO MAKE THE GRADE

20 November 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Winnipeg. The Canadian Council for Refugees today released its first report card on Canada’s refugee and immigration programs, which finds that overall Canada is moving backwards in its treatment of refugees and immigrants.

"In the face of increased concerns about the erosion of rights of refugees and immigrants, we felt that an assessment of Canada’s refugee and immigration programs was timely," said Kemi Jacobs, President of the Canadian Council for Refugees. Canada receives approximately 220,000 new immigrants and refugees annually, and is responsible for protecting their rights and providing various services and supports for them. The report card evaluates the government’s policies and programs in ten areas of concern to the Canadian Council for Refugees, assigning one of the following grades: "significant progress", "limited progress" or "deterioration". In no area was there found to have been significant progress.

The CCR does note initiatives that show a concrete effort by the government to improve policy and live up to its international obligations:

• The expansion of the grounds of protection to include protection from return to torture or to a risk to life or of cruel and unusual treatment.
  
• New measures to keep families together or to reunite them more quickly, such as the increase in the age limit for dependent children and the "one year window of opportunity" facilitating the reunification of separated refugee families.
• The move to regulate immigrant consultants
  
• The extension of eligibility for student loans to Convention refugees.

However, because of measures that limit the effectiveness of protection and the reunification of families, the CCR finds that overall there is only limited progress in these areas.

The report card identifies overall deterioration in a number of areas. Four deserve highlighting:

• Increased enforcement measures, including detention and security certificates, at the expense of individual rights
• Narrowed access to asylum in Canada, notably through the use of "direct backs" and the signing of the "safe third country" agreement with the US.
• Non-implementation of the refugee appeal, meaning that the fate of refugee claimants lies in the hands of a single decision-maker, without no right of appeal.
• Targeting of Muslims and Arabs in immigration enforcement.

"While Canada’s immigration programs are widely respected internationally, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels and assume that Canada is meeting its obligations to refugees and immigrants. Our report card clearly shows that conditions for immigrants and refugees in Canada have deteriorated significantly in many important areas; organizations like the CCR must work strategically to both prevent further erosion of conditions, and to advocate for change of those policies which have the most direct negative impact" said Jacobs.

Click here for the full report card.

For more information, please contact:

Janet Dench, Executive Director, CCR (514) 277-7223 (ext. 2)