Overhaul this bad system

Ricardo Scotland could be the poster boy for everything that’s wrong with Canada’s immigration detention system.

The refugee claimant from Barbados was held for a total of 18 months with hardened criminals at a maximum-security jail in Thorold, Ont., though Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan found this week that he was detained “for no real reason at all” and ordered his immediate release.

More than that, Justice Morgan found the illogical legal web used by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) to arrest him and keep him in indefinite custody to be both Kafkaesque and a catch-22 from which the single father of a 13-year-old could find no escape.

That is most alarming in a country that is supposed to be a bulwark of democracy.

Indeed, his case raises the question of whether Canada regularly arbitrarily detains refugee claimants and unwanted migrants in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as his lawyer argued Scotland’s indefinite detention in a maximum-security jail did.

Whether it meets that legal standard or not, Ricardo’s distressing case is yet more evidence that the Trudeau government must reform Canada’s detention regime.

It can start by ensuring that no one is jailed, unless there is a public-safety concern, and then end the practice of indefinite detention that Scotland got caught up in.

In fact, Scotland should never have been detained in the first place. And, most frighteningly, he would still be in jail if the IRB had its way — despite the fact that both his lawyer and a representative of the government made a joint submission that he should be released at his last detention hearing in May.

That’s right. The IRB adjudicator kept a refugee claimant who has no criminal record in jail despite Ottawa, never mind his own lawyer, arguing he should be released.

That fact, alone, points to the need for an overhaul of the entire immigration detention system.

Happily, that is something the Trudeau government seems to be turning its attention to.

First, in the wake of the judge’s condemnation of the system, the IRB announced this week it is conducting an independent audit of the long-term detention of non-citizens. That audit should be released publicly and migrants who pose no danger should be released immediately.

After all, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has argued that detention in the immigration system should be a “last resort.”

Indeed, last year he dedicated $5 million to be spent on “alternatives” to it. Those could include the use of performance bonds, cash deposits or electronic reporting systems so that even migrants who are considered a flight risk don’t have to be locked up.

And the decline in the number of immigration detainees since the Trudeau government was elected illustrates that progress is being made.

In the last fiscal year of 2016-17, for example, Canada detained more than 6,200 people. That is down dramatically from the10,088 detained in 2013-14 under the Harper government.

Still, Scotland’s egregious case shows, as the Star has previously argued, that there needs to be independent oversight of the CBSA to prevent unnecessary arrests and detentions.

Further, the current law, which allows for indefinite detention, is clearly unacceptable in a democracy and so out of step with our peer nations that it was criticized by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2015.

Now that a judge has stepped up to also rightly and roundly condemn the system, Ottawa must make sure no other immigration detainee is currently being held unjustly or indefinitely — or ever will be again. The system must be overhauled. Justice Morgan’s forceful decision points the way.

Most frighteningly, Ricardo Scotland would still be in jail if the Immigration and Refugee Board had its way