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CANADIAN
COUNCIL FOR REFUGEES
CONSEIL
CANADIEN POUR LES RÉFUGIÉS |
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Media Release
For
Immediate Release
16 November 2006
GOVERNMENTAL
SAFE THIRD REVIEW
ASKS WRONG QUESTIONS
The long overdue governmental
report on the first year of the Safe Third Country Agreement, made
public
today, fails to address the fundamental question of the impact of the
Agreement
on refugees, say the Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty
International
Canada. The report was produced by the
governments of Canada and the US, with input from the UNHCR.
“The governments’ review did
not ask the right questions,” said Elizabeth McWeeny, CCR President. “Our main criticism of the Agreement has
always been that it would lead to refugees being sent back to
persecution. Yet the review does not look
at the fate of
the refugees for whom Canada’s door is now closed.”
The review of the
implementation of the Agreement is
mandated by the Agreement itself, which calls for the UN High
Commissioner for
Refugees to play a monitoring role. The
UNHCR’s comments are certainly constructive, and the governments’
attention to
them is welcome. However, UNHCR’s
monitoring focused on whether the Agreement was being correctly
applied, and
not whether the Agreement, when correctly applied, has
devastating
impacts on the lives of asylum seekers, as refugee advocates believe.
Amnesty International continues to be
concerned
that the United States is not a safe place for all refugees. Some people can be refused protection in the
United States because they provided ‘material support’, (such as
providing
money or shelter), to ‘terrorist organizations’, even if they were
forced to
provide the support. This can have very
serious consequences for individuals from countries such as Colombia,
where
people who are regularly forced pay ‘protection’ money to armed
guerrilla and
paramilitary groups, under threat of death. Making the payment means
that you
can be denied protection in the United States.
The Parliamentary Standing
Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, in its report of December
2002,
raised a number of concerns about the impacts of the Safe Third Country
Agreement, notably with respect to women fleeing gender-based violence
and people
being increasingly forced to resort to dangerous and irregular border
crossings. Despite the commitments made by
the
government in its May 2003 response to the Committee, the review fails
to
provide meaningful examination of the effects of the Agreement in these
areas
of concern.
The failure to
publish the report until now, when it is already out-of-date, is an
indication
of the two governments’ lack of
interest
in being accountable with respect to the impact of the Agreement on
asylum
seekers.
The CCR published its own
report on the first year of Safe Third: “Closing The Front Door On
Refugees”, December
2005. (See release, 29 December 2005)
The CCR, AI and the Canadian Council of
Churches
have launched a court challenge of the safe third country agreement. The hearing is scheduled for February 2007.
(See release, 29 March 2006)
Contacts:
Colleen
French, Communications Coordinator, CCR (514) 277-7223 (ext. 1)
Beth
Berton-Hunter, Media & External Communications Officer, AI,
416-363-9933
(ext 32)