Bishops voice concerns on human smuggling bill
By Deborah Gyapong
Canadian
Catholic News
OTTAWA (CCN) — Canada’s
Catholic bishops joined an array of organizations and advocacy groups
critical of legislation aimed at preventing human smuggling.
The bishops argued that the
Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada’s Immigration System
Act could hurt bona fide refugees.
“Although nations have
a legitimate right to counter human smugglers because of grave abuses,
notably human trafficking, they also have a duty to take measures that
respect the rights of refugees,” Archbishop Brendan O’Brien
of Kingston, Ont., chair of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’
Commission for Justice and Peace, wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to Jason
Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism (see
related story).
The letter raised concerns
that several provisions in the bill “may contravene international
law and Canadian law and penalize the refugees more than the smugglers.”
O’Brien reiterated
the stand taken by the bishops in a 2006 pastoral letter on immigration
and refugees, which said, “It is a fundamental inversion of values,
according to Catholic teaching, when laws and policies place national
interests and security before human dignity.”
Kenney and Minister of Public
Safety Vic Toews announced the bill Oct. 21 in Vancouver, in front of
the Ocean Lady, a ship that brought 79 Tamil asylum seekers to Canada
in 2009. In August, the MV Sun Sea brought 492 smuggled Tamils to Canada
after three months at sea.
The legislation would make
it easier to prosecute human smugglers, impose mandatory minimum prison
sentences and hold ship owners accountable for any criminal action related
to smuggling. The bill also would allow the mandatory detention of illegal
migrants for up to one year until an investigation into their identities
and any possible illegal activity was completed.
While the bill is designed
to deter people from paying human smugglers to gain entry into Canada,
the legislation would allow undocumented migrants who successfully obtain
refugee status to be reassessed in five years.
“This legislation risks
creating serious obstacles to sponsorship and family reunification,”
the archbishop’s letter said. “Furthermore, it authorizes
the detention of refugees for long periods and restricts the right of
appeal.”
Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael
Miller raised similar concerns in a letter posted on the archdiocesan
website.
While supporting provisions
that would punish smugglers of human beings, he said the legislation
“appears to be losing sight of who the criminals are and who the
victims are.”
“Unfortunately, most
of the proposed bill actually pertains to the individuals who arrive
without authorization,” Miller said. “The bill is blatantly
punitive toward refugee claimants, both before and after immigration
officials have had the opportunity to identity them and establish their
backgrounds.”
The bishops’ concerns
echo those raised by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian
Council for Refugees, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants,
Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and Amnesty International. Many
of these groups have charged that the legislation creates two classes
of refugees.
One new immigration think tank, however, has criticized the bill for not going far enough. The recently formed centre for Immigration Policy Reform said shortly after the bill was introduced that it was an improvement over current law but may “prove ineffective in dealing with the majority of problematic asylum seekers, including those arriving by air.”
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