June 12, 2025
The Honourable Lena Metlege Diab, PC, M.P.
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Re: Request for meeting with the Canadian Council for Refugees to discuss building a fairer and more balanced immigration system
Dear Minister Diab
Please accept our congratulations on your appointment as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.
The Canadian Council for Refugees is a leading voice for the rights, protection, sponsorship, settlement, and well-being of refugees and migrants, in Canada and globally. CCR is driven by over 200 member organizations working with, from, and for these communities from coast to coast to coast.
We have written to the Prime Minister welcoming his commitment to Canada’s global leadership in prioritizing the world’s most vulnerable, including refugees, and to champion human rights and the rule of law. We agree wholeheartedly with the affirmation in the recent Throne Speech that Canada’s immigration system is a source of pride and dynamism for the country. We concur that newcomers to Canada, including those welcomed on a humanitarian basis who are fleeing conflict and persecution, have so much to contribute to our society. We are confident that your own experience and long-standing commitment to welcoming and celebrating the contributions of newcomers will bring much insight to the challenges ahead for your Ministry.
We know the Government is dedicated to rebuilding public trust in immigration by restoring balance to the system. With a membership working daily on the front lines of immigration, asylum and resettlement, we have deep knowledge, experience, and lived expertise to help define how and for whom this rebalancing is needed. We are requesting a meeting with you to discuss solutions to build a fairer, just and balanced immigration system that can ensure a more secure and inclusive future for us all.
Key priorities include:
1. Ensuring balanced immigration levels that reflect our obligations towards refugees
Canadian values and respect for rights are reflected in immigration targets that allow vulnerable refugees to be resettled here in safety and all refugees in Canada to be quickly reunited with immediate family. The economic, family and refugee pillars of immigration urgently need rebalancing, particularly following the cuts to the levels introduced in 2025. Changes are essential to rectify the disproportionately long processing times for refugees relative to other categories, and to respond to the increased numbers of forcibly displaced people around the world in need of a permanent home, in a manner consistent with Canadian values and the government's commitment to global leadership.
CCR recommends that you:
- Commit a minimum of 15% of annual immigration admissions to humanitarian resettlement, including at least 20,000 Government Assisted Refugees, given the skills, capacity and generosity of people in Canada.
- Set immigration levels for “Protected Persons in Canada and Dependents Abroad” sufficiently high so that accepted refugees and their family members abroad can receive permanent residence within 12 months.
2. Committing to equity and combating anti-racism
We commend the important progress already undertaken by the government to acknowledge and commit to address systemic racism within our immigration system. It is crucial that efforts to realize the principle of equity be redoubled, as the reality on the ground makes clear the work that still remains to be done. Processing times for applicants in African countries have historically been among the slowest – the Auditor-General’s 2023 report confirmed that offices in African countries have been chronically under resourced. When major crises strike, Canada’s immigration responses are very uneven, with those in Africa generally receiving minimal or no response.
CCR recommends that you:
- Give priority to rooting out racism and ensuring equity throughout immigration programs.
- Address the longstanding inequities in processing out of countries in Africa.
- Adopt an emergency crisis framework that embraces the principle of equity.
Spotlight: Gaza and Sudan
As we watch with horror the catastrophes taking place in Sudan and Gaza, Canadians want to know that our country’s response is commensurate with the scale of the human rights and humanitarian crises that are unfolding. While the CCR welcomed the introduction of immigration initiatives for Sudan and Gaza, the measures have been tragically inadequate. They fall far short in terms of the low number of people to be admitted, the numerous obstacles faced by applicants and the unbearably slow rate of processing – creating a situation where very few have arrived. Sudanese and Palestinian communities in Canada feel betrayed and deserve better.
CCR recommends that you:
- Expand the number of Sudanese individuals admitted through humanitarian, family reunification and resettlement pathways, with adequate financial support upon arrival, the removal of processing fees, and flexibility on biometrics requirements.
- Reopen and transform the Temporary Resident Visa program for Gaza, removing its invasive and burdensome restrictions as recommended by CCR, expediting processing and access to safe transport, and extending access to the Interim Federal Health Program to at least 12 months.
- For both programs, as was done in the responses to Afghanistan and Ukraine, offer avenues to people who do not have family links here or who have family in Canada who do not meet the criteria, including for people who are particularly vulnerable because of disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.
3. Ensuring the Right to Asylum with Dignity
Canada has a world-renowned system and infrastructure for resettlement, setting refugees up for success by providing them with housing, work and community. Shockingly, there is no similar coordinated system for refugee claimants seeking protection at or within our borders, resulting in refugees falling through the cracks and ending up homeless. In the absence of readying a plan in recognition of global realities, the government finds itself turning to ineffective and costly reactive responses, such as housing refugees in hotels.
The government’s focus on deterring refugees from seeking protection—whether through new visas or the expansion of the Safe Third Country Agreement with the US (STCA) and most recently Bill C-2—only forces those fleeing persecution to undertake more dangerous routes to access protection. This is especially troubling in a context where the US government has abandoned the principle of non-refoulement, dismantled its asylum system, and expanded practices that violate human and civil rights, including the detention of children at the border as we wrote to your predecessor about with some urgency in February. The Canadian government should withdraw Bill C-2 and stand up for our principles and values offering a clear plan Canadians can be proud of to ensure Asylum with Dignity.
CCR recommends that you:
- Suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States and allow individuals to present themselves and seek protection at Ports of Entry, in line with Canada’s international legal obligations.
- Ensure the right to asylum and the right to an oral hearing for all people regardless of how long they have been in Canada or how they entered the country, as protected by the Canadian Charter.
- Improve coordination with provincial, municipal and front-line civil society partners to effectively deploy Budget 2024's important investments in asylum infrastructure, including funding for reception centres and transitional housing so refugee claimants have shelter and needed wraparound supports that set them up for success.
- Expand access to legal aid and settlement services for refugee claimants so their claims can be heard fairly and they have adequate support mechanisms upon arrival. There are immediate steps that should be taken to improve access to work permits for claimants to support their dignity and desire to contribute to their new country.
- Ensure the initial stage of the claims process can be navigated by people who are facing many challenges with the process, including by not triggering automatic abandonment hearings for those who may have missed a deadline, for example, as proposed in C-2.
- Advocate for adequate funding for Canada’s globally respected Immigration and Refugee Board to eliminate the backlog in the subsequent determination process.
4. Reuniting refugee families quickly
Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act rightly highlights the goal of family reunification – but this objective is being undermined by ever longer delays. Having successfully navigated our refugee determination system and been recognized as refugees, Protected Persons face an agonizing wait of over four years to be reunited with their spouses and dependents who are still abroad. Resettled refugees also regularly face long waits for family members to join them in Canada. We welcome your department’s recent initiative to improve One Year Window processing.
Prolonged family separation has devastating consequences for mental health and leads to lost economic opportunities not only for the affected family but for Canada as a whole. By failing to reunite children expeditiously with their parents, Canada is breaching its obligations to respect the rights of the child.
CCR recommends that you:
- Issue instructions enabling family members of refugees to travel to Canada on Temporary Resident Permits so that they can be reunited while waiting for processing of their permanent residence applications.
- Establish a standard of 6 months to reunite separated children(those currently with neither parent) with a parent in Canada.
5. Upholding Rights for Temporary Residents and Migrant Workers
Welcoming people as permanent residents must remain the core focus of Canadian immigration policy. It is central to how we have grown strong and diverse communities, an active democracy, and a resilient economy. Policy shifts that are leading to increasing numbers of people living here for long periods of time but on only temporary visas undermine these outcomes creating imbalance and deep inequities in our immigration system. Creating a treadmill of temporary status treats people who are contributing so much unfairly and leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
CCR recommends that you:
- Lead a review of government policies to ensure that people who will be living here long-term either arrive as permanent residents or can transition quickly to permanent residence through a transparent and accessible process.
- Take concrete steps to reduce the precarity and vulnerability of those with temporary status, including through creation of open work permits, and granting them equal access to the social services that their taxes support.
- Renew and implement the long standing commitment to regularize those who have been living and contributing to our country for years without status or benefits.
6. Building a Partnership with the Immigration and Refugee Serving Sector
As we wrote to the Prime Minister, Canadian organizations and institutions are recognized globally as leaders in the provision of settlement and integration supports for refugees and newcomers. Recent cuts that have accompanied the immigration levels announcements undermine significantly how we are able as a sector to set newcomers up for success, and in turn, generate the many benefits to our communities and country that you know so well.
The sector has deep experience in the successes and failures of policies and programs and a keen appetite for partnership and dialogue. A reset is needed with the settlement sector in particular to ensure a respectful relationship is built with organizations funded to provide services, recognising their expertise. More broadly, early and regular consultation with CCR and its members can ensure government decision-making benefits from the experience and perspectives of those from and working with newcomer and refugee communities.
CCR recommends that you:
- Engage with CCR and its members as experienced and trusted partners in building strong immigration and humanitarian policies, programs and services, both directly and through continued engagement through key dialogue fora that the Department facilitates.
- Meet with our membership at our annual Fall Consultation, taking place in Winnipeg November 18-20th, 2025. It would be wonderful to host you!
- In closing, we look forward to working with you in forging solutions in the priorities above and to be partners in building a positive vision and narrative to renew public support and confidence in the crucial role of immigrants and refugees in building a prosperous, just and inclusive Canada.
In closing, we look forward to working with you in forging solutions in the priorities above and to be partners in building a positive vision and narrative to renew public support and confidence in the crucial role of immigrants and refugees in building a prosperous, just and inclusive Canada.
We hope to meet with you in the coming weeks and will follow up with your office to find the best time for your schedule.
Yours sincerely,
Diana Gallego
President
cc. Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar, Deputy Minister