The
following is an unpublished
letter to the editor of the Globe.
The
Aug 11 editorial "Refugee policy begins at
home" is somewhoat misleading. It gives
credence to the pretext that
the
use of visas on travel from Mexico and
Czech Republic requires changes
to
Canada's legislation relating to refugee
determination. Nothing in
refugee
status procedure compels Canada to limit
travel by a visa. A month or
so back
the pretext for a visa was backlogs which
a number of people pointed
out were
the result of failure of the present
government to maintain adequate
numbers of
Immigration and Refugee Board members. I
pointed out that, contrary to
facile
assumptions, the implementation of the
simple paper appeal, which
exists in the
present legislation, could result in
streamlining of the overall
processes. Now
the pretext is that we must not upset
Mexico and the Czech Republic by
imposing
visas on travel. So the visas which should
not have been necessary have
now
become a call for unneccessary legislative
change because they upset
friendly
nations. That is just absurd reasoning.
Refugee
policy does not begin at home. The grant
of refugee
status is an internationally sanctioned
action based in a UN treaty.
The whole
business is international from the
definition of refugee in the treaty
to the
international body, the UNHCR, which
supervises the treaty. The
fundamental
notion is that the need for protection of
the individual human being -
the
person qualifying as refugee - should
trump diplomatic niceties and
matters of
convenience amongst states, such as travel
unencumbered by visa
requirements.
If the individual qualifies the individual
gets protection. The notion
that a
friendly State could not produce a refugee
is completely antithetical
to the
notion that the individual who qualifies
under the international
definition
gets protection however friendly the
State. Screening was tried in the
package
of legislative changes in 1989 and dropped
later because it did not
help. Not
everyone may qualify in the end, but a lot
of refugee applicants have
an
arguable case in simple screenings, so the
percentage screened out was
very
small and did not expedite the process.
And it is pure treachery to
imply, as
some do, that Canada should use officials
who will somehow ensure that
persons
from friendly countries could never
qualify as refugees. Thus far,
thanks to
the Mulroney conservatives, Canada has an
Immigration and Refugee
Board, an
arms-length body of trained offiicials who
aim to make the primary
decision
about refugee status objectively, based on
the international treaty
definition.
Comparisons
with Europe do not help too much because
of the
different geographical and political
context. Land borders and easy
travel
links with Africa and Asia make potential
numbers of claimants more
ominous.
Freedom of travel is a key part of Euopean
treaties whereas it is not
in NAFTA.
The human rights systems in the two world
regions are different, a
slightly
higher level of due process is required in
the Americas.
You
may be right that speeding up the
processing is the way
to go. Unfortunately, so far every
"reform" since 1985 has reduced
due process standards for some group of
potential refugees.
Paradoxically,
implementing a simple appeal could help.
It would speedily resolve
errors and
reduce the need for a number of court
cases and reduce the number of
applicants
for discretionary immigration procedures.
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