Canada’s refugee system ‘best’ in world

Jonothan Charlton
jonathan.charlton@dal.ca

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Baghdad resident Bassam Al-Rawi started receiving death threats and members of his family became victims of politically motivated killings.

He fled first to Germany, where he spent four years in a refugee camp, but ultimately the German government didn’t believe his story of political persecution.

Facing the prospect of being sent back to Iraq, Al-Rawi went to Canada, arriving on July 1, 2008. Eleven months later, the government accepted his refugee claim. He’s now a permanent resident of Canada.

Al-Rawi is a man with a legitimate fear of persecution – his was a legitimate refugee claim. But it’s a commonly held belief in political and media circles that refugee claimants try to take advantage of Canada’s refugee claims system.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that Canadian refugee law encourages “bogus claims.” Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said the asylum system should be reformed to weed out “economic migrants seeking to abuse our generosity.”

Columns and editorials in the Globe and Mail and the National Post have been critical of both the system and the government’s inaction in reforming it.

But a Halifax woman who works on the front lines of the system thinks that belief is wrong.

Julie Chamagne, executive director of the Halifax Refugee Clinic, provides refugee claimants with legal and settlement services. Chamagne might give legal counsel for a client’s hearing, or another worker might help writing a resume.

“People should know it’s not an easy procedure at all,” she says. She realizes that in some cases the procedure is abused, but stresses that the vast majority of claimants are indeed fleeing prosecution and have to “navigate this very complex and lengthy and very stressful determination procedure.”

“There is this kind of general perception that refugee claimants are kind of jumping the queue, and they’re just using the system. It’s really tough on people to go through all that and there are very few people who don’t do it for the right reasons.”

Another successful claimant is 41-year-old Julio Castellon from Havana. He worked as a merchant sailor for 18 years, until he got in trouble with Cuban authorities. In Cuba, you are either with the government or against it, he says, and he started thinking differently from the official government doctrine.

“You turn on the TV, and you hear the news … you say ‘Wow, this is a wonderland.’ But when you are there, you see it’s not like that.”

For example, he disagrees with the custom that foreigners get preferential treatment.

Castellon landed in Canada on July 17, 2008. He completed his claim that November, had his hearing in July 2009 and got his residence permit last month. He has also filled out the paperwork to bring his wife and son to Canada, but that will take more time. He’s working as a marine insurance inspector.

Though his claim was resolved fairly quickly, it still felt like a long time. He says it’s like waiting for a bus, but you don’t know when it’s going to arrive.

One thing Castellon says he would like to see is more centres like the Halifax Refugee Clinic to help newcomers to Canada. He says that moving to Canada is like being “born for a second time, but in another place where you don’t know nothing.”

Chamagne sees many people come through the clinic’s doors. She also has a lot of experience with Canada’s refugee system. Overall, she thinks it works well.

“As it is now, it’s not a perfect system – really nowhere is – but I’ve worked in a couple other countries in the world and know a little bit about their refugee determination procedures, I would really say it’s one of the best in the world.”

Peter Showler, the director of the Refugee Forum at the University of Ottawa, agrees.

More than half of the 146 signatories of the United Nations refugee convention don’t have any system at all, he says, and rely on the UN to designate refugees in their country of origin.

Secondly, Canada and Belgium are the only countries where the first decision on a claimant’s case is made as a full tribunal decision – a model he calls first decision-best decision. In other countries, poorly trained immigration officials
perform a relatively short interview that lacks quality procedures.

The weaknesses in Canada’s system are the lack of a reliable safety net for errors that are made, and the fact that board members are political appointments by the federal cabinet.

He adds that, the criticism that Canada’s system is too soft and too porous, are “nonsense.” He says critics who cite low European acceptance rates overlook claimants that are accepted under legislation that isn’t recorded by the UN. Most European countries don’t have immigration legislation, only citizenship acts.

“Quite candidly, the Europeans get it wrong,” he says. European countries have very developed interdiction systems that keep refugee claimants out.  While they say those claimants are economic migrants or false refugees, there’s no way of knowing that without a hearing. He adds that Canada’s acceptance rate is close to the actual number of claimants with well-founded fears of persecution.

Finally, he says that Canada is simply meeting its obligations under the UN refugee convention when it provides medical care, welfare, and work permits to eligible refugee claimants while they wait for their hearing. Canada’s not being over-generous, it’s other countries that aren’t doing enough.

Al-Rawi came to Canada because of its reputation. He says that everything he heard about Canada, from the Internet and from other people, was true.

He works as a taxi driver, but hopes to move into medical technology, a field in which he has an Iraqi diploma.

He appreciates Canadian freedoms, especially during the refugee claims process.

“If you want to study, you can go study. You want to work, work a lot, you want to stay home, stay home. You have many choices,” says Al-Rawi.

“I come to Canada because Canada the best place to refugee people like me.”

Cuban-born Julio Castellon is one of the approximately 12,000 refugees every year who find a new home in Canada.