CCR Resolutions Database

The federal government announced reductions to the Interim Federal Health Program in April 2012 and these changes are slated to come into effect on June 30th, 2012.

individuals with on-going processes with CIC, CBSA, and/or the IRB are required to provide separate address notification to each,

conditions imposed on individuals to be released from detention by the Immigration Division and conditions imposed for a stay of a deportation order by the Immigration Appeal Division do not always take into consideration difficulties of compliance for people with serious mental health issues.

1. It is estimated that the backlog of refugee claims at the IRB will be approximately 38,000 at the time Bill C 31 comes into effect,
2. This backlog will severely hamper the functioning of the new system,
3. These individuals will be denied access to the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) and to consideration on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds solely due to delays in processing their claims at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and
4. Canada and other jurisdictions have implemented regularization programs to eliminate backlogs prior to changes in the refugee determination system

1. Proceedings at the IRB involving refugees and refugee claimants are held in private by operation of law;
2. Disclosure of information regarding refugees can place applicants, their family members and associates at risk;
3. The information contained in judicial review records routinely includes protected private information;

1. Canadians, many private and public stakeholders and governments agree that Canada needs immigrants to sustain its current prosperity;
2. Canada has received immigrants in excess of 1% of the population in several previous years and has become stronger as a result;
3. Immigration has strengthened Canada's multicultural and multifaith fabric;
4. Canada is attempting to fill its demographic needs through temporary rather than permanent immigration;

1. The live-in caregiver program currently requires workers to live in the employer’s home;
2. Living in the employer’s home creates a greater possibility for sexual and labour exploitation;
3. The program does not allow family members to accompany the worker until they fulfill their required hours, thereby leading to family separation for a minimum period of 2 years;

1. Family  reunification is a central objective of Canada's immigration programs
2. The CCR has called on the government to eliminate barriers to family reunification;
3. Extended families including parents and grandparents are important to social and economic wellbeing of families, including those of refugees and immigrants;
4. The sponsorship of parents and grandparents have had a lower overall priority in family reunification applications for the last few years;
5. The moratorium on these applications will close the door to some of these family members;

1. The government is introducing multiple entry visas of up to 10 years to allow parents and grandparents to visit family here as a way to address long family separations caused by processing delays;
2. The visitors are required to purchase medical insurance in order to qualify for the visa;
3. Canada imposes visa requirements only on some countries, mostly in the global south and those with a majority racialized population;
4. Racialized Canadians are over-represented among those who would be most affected;

1. Permanent residents who are found to be inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality or organized crime are denied access to the Immigration Appeal Division;
2. Convention refugees in Canada can be removed for reasons of serious criminality if there is a danger opinion against them;

1. The international community issued a call for action following the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa and the Government of Canada presented Canada’s Action Plan Against Racism in 2005;
2. Examples of concerns include significant delays in the processing of cases in Sub Saharan African countries. Applicants face some of the longest waiting times and one of the highest rate of refusals, and the total quota of refugees accepted from the region is far lower than the extent of need identified by the UNHCR and NGOs. The recent announcement of a quota system for Quebec will reduce only the number of arrivals from Africa;
3. This is clear evidence of systemic racism experienced by individuals of African origin across all categories of refugee protection and immigration.

1. The Canadian people through their faith and ethnocultural organizations wish to welcome and protect refugees;
2. The Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program allows Canadians to welcome and protect refugees;

1. The government of Canada is proposing to introduce a specified period of conditional permanent residence for some sponsored spouses and partners;
2. Making permanent residence for the sponsored partner conditional puts all the power into the hands of sponsor, who may use the precarity of the partner’s status as a tool for manipulation;
3. The proposed conditional permanent residency would represent a major step backwards in Canadian immigration policy, increase inequalities in relationships between spouses, and put women in particular at heightened risk of violence and exploitation;

1. Bill C-11 will create very tight timelines;
2. Claimants will need assistance in understanding and preparing for the process;

1. The monitoring system implemented by CIC as part of recent changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program is voluntary and therefore ineffective;
2. Abuses of Temporary Foreign Workers by employers are widespread and have been well documented;

1. Canada has given itself a “Strategic Framework to Foster Immigration to Francophone Minority Communities” for francophone immigration outside of Québec. The strategy was crafted by the federal and provincial governments, at the request and with the participation of francophone communities outside of Québec;
2. Canada's current activities of recruitment of francophone immigrants abroad are mostly targeted at francophone countries in Europe, to the detriment of francophone countries in other regions of the world;
3. Francophone immigrants, most of them belonging to racialized communities, face differential treatment and experience poor outcomes in the Canadian labour market and other areas of Canadian life;
4. Yearly target levels for francophone immigration outside of Québec continue to be below the levels needed to ensure the demographic viability of francophone communities outside of Québec;
5. Refugee and immigrant serving organizations outside of Québec have a key role to play in supporting francophone immigrants’ settlement and integration, even if they do not provide services in French;

1. H&C applications are the only applications for permanent residence in Canada in which the best interests of the child and the right to family unity are taken into account;
2. Canada has legal obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to provide effective remedies to ensure the respect of these rights;
3. Delays in processing of H&C applications are leading to more and more people being removed from Canada prior to the examination of pending H&C applications;
4. Under Bill C-11, it is the government’s intention to remove failed claimants very quickly following their refusal;
5. Bill C-11 provides for fixed timelines for every stage of the refugee process;

1. Temporary Foreign Workers are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse with numerous documented cases;
2. Their vulnerability is increased by contraventions of IRPA committed by employers and recruiters;
3. There are limited or no resources for mandatory monitoring and enforcement;
4. When there is no system of enforcement, Temporary Foreign Workers are the ones penalized, resulting in further victimization;

1. Changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program to be implemented in April 2011 will impose a four year limit on the stay of Temporary Foreign Workers and a four year delay before they are able to participate again in the program;
2. This will increase the undocumented workforce and thus increase the vulnerability of workers;

1. Law enforcement agencies have been widely known to engage in the practice of asking for the immigration status of detained and non-detained individuals;
2. There has been a CBSA presence during and after police raids;
3. It is widely known that racial profiling is an established practice of law enforcement agencies;

1. Equitable access to resettlement and dignified treatment are fundamental to a just refugee resettlement system;
2. Processing times for refugees to Canada from Africa are unacceptably long;
3. The number of visa offices processing permanent residence applications in Africa is shockingly inadequate;
4. CIC does not have the physical office space and resources to process applications;
5. Refugees and their families suffer disproportionately from this situation in spite of the reality that African countries host huge numbers of refugees in need of resettlement;

1. Provincial Ministries of Education have existing commitments to address stereotypes through anti-bullying and anti-racism principles of awareness, empathy, engagement, cultural sensitivity and empowerment;
2. Extensive efforts have been made to develop curriculum modifications to address the needs of newcomer students;
3. Schools are central to inculcating citizenship values among all Canadian youth;

1. The federal Temporary Foreign Workers Program frustrates the attempts of communities to attract and retain population permanently, and contradicts the goals of CIC’s Welcoming Communities Initiative and similar initiatives of other jurisdictions;
2. The goals of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act promote immigration to build the future of Canada;
3. The CCR supports access to permanent residency for temporary workers;
4. Many concerns have been raised about lack of equitable access for temporary workers to permanent residency through the underutilized Canadian Experience Class;

1. The Gender and Anti-Racism Core Groups have contributed significantly to the development of CCR policy and practices since their creation;
2. The structure of the core groups no longer meets the needs of the CCR membership;
3. The CCR adopted in May 2009 an Anti-Oppression Policy which addresses oppression based on gender and racism as well as many other forms of oppression;

1. A humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Sri Lanka since early this year;
2. More than 300,000 Tamils displaced in the North and East of Sri Lanka are trapped in a deteriorating humanitarian situation and Tamils in other parts of Sri Lanka are vulnerable to harassment, humiliation and threat of violence;