Canada's tradition of helping refugees is under threat

At the conference, Jason Kenney, Canada's minister of citizenship and immigration, announced that Canada would resettle slightly more refugees in the future. While this news is welcome, the numbers involved are far too small to meaningfully address the fundamental imbalance in the distribution of refugees between rich and poor countries. Nor can opening the door a crack wider for refugee resettlement make up for policies that would violate the rights of refugees in Canada to whom we have legal obligations under the Refugee Convention.

The government of Canada is making changes to our refugee-determination system that deprive asylumseekers a fair hearing. It often portrays them as criminals and queue-jumpers. It has introduced a bill that it says is aimed at deterring smugglers, but that mostly targets refugees. Let us look at the reasons why these measures must be reconsidered.

The 1951 Refugee Convention defines who qualifies as a refugee and spells out the rights and obligations of host countries and refugees. The convention has enabled the UNHCR to help millions of uprooted people restart their lives. It remains the cornerstone of refugee protection, but it faces unprecedented challenges.

As Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, explained, "The causes of forced displacement are multiplying. People are uprooted not just by conflict and persecution, but also by extreme poverty and the impact of climate change. These factors are increasingly interrelated."

The cornerstone of the 1951 convention is known as the principle of non-refoulement: States party to the convention agreed not to return refugees to countries where they face serious threats to their lives or freedom. This was a radical departure from the principle that states determined whom they would admit to their territory.

The convention, adopted in the aftermath of the Second World War, was a part of what John Humphrey described as a revolution in international law. Humphrey, a Canadian, wrote the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and became the first director of the United Nations Human Rights Division. He explained that traditional international law governed only the relations of states. Individual men and women were neither subject to its rules nor protected by them.

The UN charter's very first article states that one of the purposes of the organization is to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion. Member states pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in co-operation with the organization to promote that purpose.

Although the human-rights revolution endures to this day, global circumstances have changed. In 1951, the UNHCR's caseload was 2.1 million Europeans.

Today, 80 per cent of the world's refugees are in developing countries. Recent crises in Somalia, Libya and Côte d'Ivoire have added to the developing world's burden. East Africa is struggling with the worst drought in 60 years, and Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are hosting nearly 450,000 Somali refugees. Tunisia and Egypt received the bulk of the exodus from Libya. Barely recovering from years of civil conflict, Liberia provides refuge to more than 150,000 Ivoirians who fled postelection violence and a still-uncertain situation in their home country.

Meanwhile, anti-refugee sentiment is increasing in many industrialized countries.

Canada is the fifth-highest asylum-providing country in the industrialized world, after the U.S., France, Germany and Sweden. Yet the number of asylum applications in Canada dropped by 30 per cent in 2010 compared to 2009, the lowest level since 2006.

Gutteres observed on World Refugee Day last June, "In today's world there are worrying misperceptions about refugee protection and the international protection paradigm. Fears about supposed floods of refugees in industrialized countries are being vastly overblown or mistakenly conflated with issues of migration. Meanwhile, it's poorer countries that are left having to pick up the burden."

Last November, on the eve of the UNHCR meeting, the Canadian Council for Refugees held its fall consultation in Montreal. Participants addressed issues relating to the rights and protection of refugees in Canada and around the world and the settlement of refugees and immigrants in Canada. The council is concerned about the federal government's Bill C-4, The Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act.

If this bill is passed, some refugees, including refugee children, will be mandatorily detained, without possibility of independent review for a year. The bill also provides for some refugees to be denied permanent residence for five years, even after they have been accepted as refugees by Canada. During these five years, they will not be able to bring even their immediate family (spouse and children) to Canada. They will also be prevented from travelling outside Canada.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and many law professors believe that Bill C-4 would violate Canada's international human-rights obligations, including the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It would represent a betrayal of Canada's better traditions of welcoming and protecting refugees. Evidence suggests that it would not even achieve the intended objective of deterring arrivals. Its implementation would be expensive for the taxpayer, both in short-term detention expenses and in long-term social and health costs. It would significantly damage Canada's international moral authority with respect to refugee protection.

The 1951 Refugee Convention has stood the test of time. It has enabled millions of uprooted people to rebuild their lives. This not only benefits refugees but host countries, as Canada's own experience suggests. We owe it to all refugees and to ourselves to uphold the values and principles of the 1951 Convention.