Odds stacked against refugees,
Millions of Syrians flee, but only hundreds of claims received by Canada
The journey to Canada is often a torturous one for Syrian refugees even though Ottawa has made their resettlement a priority. The few who somehow manage to make it to Canada have a 90 per cent success rate of being granted asylum. But with more than four million Syrians forced to flee the war-torn country and millions of others displaced, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board received only 552 claims from Syrian nationals last year and 233 so far this year.
The tiny numbers, critics say, reflect how Canada’s tightened border control is denying access to those in desperate need of protection.
“Their high acceptance rate points to the fact that they are genuine refugees. These are people who are fleeing for their lives out of desperation,” said Queen’s University immigration and refugee law professor Sharryn Aiken.
“It’s so hard for them to get a visa to Canada. Someone is not going to get a visa if they are suspected of trying to make a refugee claim in Canada.”
And even with a valid visa, an air passenger could still be pulled off a flight by Canada Border Services Agency officers stationed at airports abroad based on that suspicion.
Coming to Canada will be made even harder in March when Ottawa launches the “electronic travel authorization” scheme to weed out visitors travelling on false documents.
Although the Conservative government has committed to resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees over three years under its once-respected resettlement program, changes it made to the program have added unnecessary bureaucracy for sponsorship groups. Those groups already face the daunting and often onerous task of raising $27,000 to cover a refugee family’s first year in Canada, a financial commitment that might be discouraging to people who would otherwise be eager to help.
Advocacy groups have also complained that inadequate staffing in visa offices overseas has unnecessarily prolonged the processing of Syrian refugees.
The 85 groups that have formal refugee sponsorship agreements with Ottawa told researchers last year that they were afraid the changes made to the resettlement program were threatening the vitality of Canada’s refugee sponsorship program, which was launched in 1978 amid an outpouring of public concern over the Vietnamese “boat people” crisis.
“The big challenge is the paperwork. The whole application process is huge and it takes a vast amount of time working with our constituency groups and refugees to get through the mountains of paperwork required,” said Rebecca Walker, refugee co-ordinator of the Burlingtonbased World Renew, a sponsorship agreement holder with the government.
“Many of these refugees are in camps and don’t have access to the Internet. It’s so costly that most of them just don’t have the kind of money to do it.”
To address the growing backlog, Ottawa introduced new rules in 2011 to cap the number of refugee sponsorship applications. However, the caps did not apply to the so-called Groups of Five and community sponsors who could still sponsor as many refugees as they wanted as long as they had the money. Hence, the following year, the federal government made it more difficult for these private groups to help by barring them from sponsoring asylum seekers who have not been designated as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or the country where they are staying.
Martin Mark, executive director of the Catholic Office of Refugees in the Archdiocese of Toronto, said there are many Canadians who want to help and the Canadian government has to be more “flexible” in applying these rules to the Syrians.
“Our government needs to consider that this is an extraordinary time and we need to open our doors and allow them to come to Canada on temporary protection,” said Mark, who is leading a group to the Middle East in October to meet with refugees for resettlement.
In the past, Ottawa has been flexible in admitting refugees.
In 1999, the then Liberal government evacuated 5,000 Kosovar refugees affected by the Balkan wars — in 21 daily flights — to Canada on an emergency humanitarian mission. On top of that, over 2,000 of these refugees were admitted under the family reunification and special needs programs.
“They were airlifted here quickly and could undergo permanent resident applications on humanitarian grounds after two years,” said Mark. “We have a high volume of Syrian refugees and we need fast processing. Having a temporary protection program is only realistic.”
Loly Rico, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, agreed.
“We must open our doors. We call on an urgent basis for Syrians with family in Canada to be allowed to travel here immediately and complete processing in Canada where they can be safe.”