CCR Resolutions Database

1. Canada has suspended deportations to Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire), Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Burundi;
2. CIC does not consider this policy to cover removals to third countries, principally the United States;
3. A significant numbers of claimants arrive at Canadian border points via the United States, often as a result of Canadian interdiction practices;
4. A growing number of refused refugee claimants face an imminent danger of being removed to the United States, a country which at present has no suspension of deportations to the above-named countries;
5. The CCR has written several times to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, in the spring and summer of 1998, asking her to suspend removals of these individuals to the United States;
6. CIC has to date maintained its policy;

1. Acquisition of language is key to the educational process;
2. Adequate language funding in the school system is important to the future success of immigrant and refugee children;
3. Current Ontario government policy only allow for three years of language support from the time of arrival in Canada;

1. The Canadian Council for Refugees has promoted the involvement of NGOs in the identification of refugees overseas;
2. Citizenship and Immigration Canada`s refugee resettlement model proposes the involvement of NGOs as overseas service partners;

1. The Immigration and Refugee Board has begun to conduct refugee hearings using video-conferencing whereby IRB members in one city conduct hearings on claimants in another city;
2. The IRB has done no analysis of the impact of such video-conference hearings on the ability of claimants to have a fair hearing;
3. The use of video-conference hearings is contrary to the IRB's own stated policy of making the setting of refugee claims less intimidating and less formal;
4. The use of video-conferencing for refugee hearings is a denial of due process to refugee claimants;
5. Videoconferencing is also being used in detention reviews, similarly compromising the rights of detainees to a fair hearing;

There have been numerous formal and informal complaints about the IRB procedures and members have not been treated seriously;

1. There has been inadequate consultation with immigrants into their views on the proposed IMM 2000 card;
2. The stated purpose is to prevent fraud which suggests that landed immigrants are perpetuating fraud;
3. There will be costs to the landed immigrant over and above the discriminatory Right of Landing Fee (Head Tax);
4. There are concerns about the information that will be able to be accessed by the IMM 2000 card;
5. We believe that the use of biometrics is a violation of basic human rights;

1. Colombia continues to experience a plague of human rights violations with comparatively little world attention and near total impunity for the perpetrators;
2. The Colombian government continues to disavow responsibility for the human rights violations;
3. On 16 May 1998 Colombian paramilitaries murdered seven people and disappeared 25 others in Barrancabermeja;
4. A campaign has been organized by a coalition of Colombian NGOs to try the perpetrators of this crime in public opinion tribunals in several countries, including Canada;

1. The CCR supports the right of the Canadian government to deny refuge to people who have committed crimes against humanity and to others who pose serious national security threats, except where refoulement is in contravention of the Convention Against Torture or where there will be a risk of capital punishment;
2. It is the right and duty of the state to ensure that a just system for identifying such persons is in place;
3. The definitions in the Immigration Act relating to inadmissibility on the basis of security are over-broad;
4. Decisions regarding security inadmissibility are made without respecting the due process rights of those affected;
5. There is no time limit within which a decision may be made, leading to indefinite delays for some of those affected;

The CCR is concerned that refugee claims are being put into the abandonment - show cause stream at the IRB because claimants are being served by CIC with their eligibility and referral documents several days after the date of issuance of these documents;

1. Civic participation, including taking out citizenship, being aware of political issues and voting, is key to full participation in Canadian society;
2. Political representation seems to be lagging behind demographic change;

1. Convention refugees who have not been landed are living permanently in Canada;
2. Access to higher education is a key to Canadian life and economic independence;

1. The CCR has passed an earlier resolution that the Right of Landing Fee is discriminatory, exclusionary and racist because of the vast variance in country and individual income around the world, and is particularly burdensome for refugees;
2. Previous to 1995 refugees were not charged interest on transportation loans, admissibility loans and assistance loans;
3. The interest rate charged is above prime rate;

The nomination process and the renewal of mandates at the IRB do not have the confidence of the legal and human rights communities;

1. Immigrants and refugees are coming to this country with qualifications and professional skills that are needed in Canada;
2. Many newcomers have been denied access to their professions or trades because of inflexible accreditation bodies;

1. General Augusto Pinochet is presently detained in the United Kingdom pending extradition proceeding initiated by Spain, France and Switzerland;
2. General Pinochet's 1973 coup d'état against Chile's democratically elected government and the brutal dictatorship which he directed until 1990 was responsible for the deaths and/or disappearance of more than 3,000 Chileans and others, the torture and imprisonment of many thousands more and the forced exile of still more thousands to many countries including Canada;
3. Applications have been made to the government of Canada by a Canadian citizen who was detained and tortured in Chile in October 1973, as well as by a number of Canadian citizens of Chilean origin who experienced severe abuses throughout the Pinochet years, for the prosecution and extradition of General Pinochet;

1. The CCR is concerned that the drive for efficiency at the CRDD is resulting in the denial of the right of claimants to full and fair hearings;
2. The CCR is concerned about allegations of bias by members at the CRDD in their rendering of decisions in claims based on sexual orientation;
3. The CCR is concerned that the inability of lawyers to obtain conventional tape recordings of CRDD hearings is placing obstacles in the way of a claimant's right and a lawyer's ability to apply properly for leave to commence judicial review proceedings at the federal court;
4. The CCR is concerned about the misconduct by RCOs during refugee claim hearings;

1. The Human Rights Code includes sexual orientation as one of the prohibited grounds for discrimination in Canada;
2. Gay men, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered individuals are as much a part of the immigrant and refugee communities as they are part of every community;
3. Settlement agencies have the responsibility to provide relevant, effective and appropriate services to these further marginalized immigrant and refugee communities;
4. The staff of settlement agencies, as part of a society that has heterosexist privilege, may have internalized a world view that further marginalizes these groups;
5. This will impact negatively on the ability of the sector to provide effective settlement services to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered immigrants and refugees;

1. Visa officers appear to be refusing an increasing number of privately sponsored refugee applicants;
2. There is no appeal from such refusals except by way of judicial review which few applicants are aware of or resourced to pursue;
3. Canada Immigration National Headquarters staff have indicated no more exact figure than that between 40% and 60% of privately sponsored refugees are refused;

1. Article 28 of the 1951 Geneva Convention requires contracting states including Canada to issue travel documents to Convention Refugees;
2. The present Canadian practice is normally not to issue travel documents to Convention Refugees until they have been granted permanent resident status;
3. There are long periods between the recognition of refugee status and the issuance of landing status especially for those without identity documents;
4. Even Convention Refugees who are landed are routinely denied travel documents and told instead to obtain passports from the very governments they have fled;
5. Even after landing, there are prolonged periods of 3 months or more to finally obtain travel documents;
6. Inability to travel outside of Canada to visit family relatives and/or facilitate family reunification causes tremendous difficulties for refugees;

1. In many areas immigration policy affects men and women differently;
2. There is no central coordination of gender analysis within the Immigration Department;

1. There are 3,000 Assyrian Christians who fled Iraq due to the war and persecution and are living temporarily in Jordan;
2. There are 2,000 Assyrian Christians living temporarily in Turkish refugee camps;
3. There have been many cases of further mistreatment in both Turkey and Jordan;

1. Bill C-40 contains provisions which amend the Immigration Act to deem some persons facing extradition to have received a decision of the Immigration and Refugee Board and to be found not to be a Convention Refugee even though no hearing of the Immigration and Refugee Board was actually held;
2. These amendments to the Immigration Act deny refugee claimants their right to a hearing before the IRB and to make submissions to establish their claim to refugee status;
3. International human rights have been involved in extraditions and expulsions by Canada and have been the object of views by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, for example, in the cases of Ng, Khan, and Cox;
4. In the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Canada has accepted responsibility for measures necessary to ensure these international rights;

1. In June of 1996, in response to the U.S. INS detention of Canada-bound refugee claimants and the subsequent processing of said claimants for deportation, the CCR passed a resolution urging CIC to cease turning refugee claimants back to the U.S.;
2. INS detentions of Canada-bound refugee claimants have continued and, in fact, broadened in 1998 to include detentions in the Niagara Region, Blackpool and Minnesota;
3. INS has continued to detain certain refugee claimants, even after such claimants have received Canadian eligibility determinations, thereby denying these claimants the opportunity to pursue their refugee claims in Canada;
4. In an April 29, 1998 letter to the President of the CCR, the Acting Director General of the Enforcement Branch, CIC NHQ, stated, "...it is our policy that no person will be returned to the United States where there is reason to believe that they will be removed from the U.S. before the scheduled eligibility determination or would otherwise be unavailable because of detention. We are reviewing our procedures manual to ensure that this is clearly understood";
5. Despite the above-cited policy, CIC in the Niagara Region has continued to direct refugee claimants back to the United States to await eligibility determinations, which has resulted in the detention of a troubling number of people;
6. CIC's practice at certain border crossings of closing the border to refugee claimants on certain days of the week or at certain times of the year has also led to U.S. detentions of Canada-bound refugees awaiting Canadian processing;

1. The CCR adopted Resolution 3 in November 1997 concerning changes from AAP to RAP and has not received a satisfactory response;
2. There has been no consultation about the changes to services with the organizations that deliver the services, let alone with the refugees receiving the services;
3. CIC is committed to promoting through its services greater independence in government-assisted refugees;
4. CIC is continuing to impose a quantitative approach (defining the numbers of hours of service to be delivered, and the period within which they are to be delivered);
5. The changes appear to mean, at least in some regions, significant cutbacks in services for government-assisted refugees;
6. In some areas the role of reception centres is being called into question, but without open discussion and consultation;
7. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is developing national standards for services to arriving refugees, again without consultations;

Groups applying for Joint Assistance Sponsorships for Women at Risk can face unexpected requests for travel costs in addition to the resettlement support they promised;