Relocating Refugees Marc Miller vs. the RoC September 16 2024 Interview on CBC

Loren McGinnis:               A row over a specific part of our immigration system. On one side you have Alberta Premier Danielle Smith saying We cannot handle an influx of asylum seekers moving to the province. On the other, you have federal immigration Minister Marc Miller saying Alberta needs to do more. The disagreement stems from a possible federal plan to move asylum seekers out of Quebec and Ontario. In the middle of this, are people seeking asylum in the first place. To tell us more about them and their circumstances, we have Raj Sharma on the line. He’s an immigration lawyer here in Calgary with Stewart Sharma Harsanyi. Good morning to you, Raj.

Raj Sharma:                        Good morning, Loren.

Loren McGinnis:               So what circumstances make a person eligible to seek asylum and perhaps the circumstances that push them into that situation?

Raj Sharma:                        A person is a refugee or considered a refugee or eligible to make a refugee claim if they have a well-founded fear of persecution due to one of the convention grounds, race, religion, political opinion, membership in a particular social group, or that there is a risk to their life in a return scenario.

Loren McGinnis:               Can you give us examples of situations that people face in their country of origin that may make people seek asylum specifically?

Raj Sharma:                        Yes, absolutely. You may have someone that’s here as a visitor, let’s say a Russian national young man that’s opposed to the war in Ukraine, that is opposed to, let’s say, military service or opposed to the Putin regime. Now, that would be construed as political opinion and that individual may well face repercussions, legal and otherwise in a return scenario. So that would be a sort of classic definition. It could be a journalist who is espousing views that are unpalatable, unacceptable to that particular government in a return scenario. It could be a religious convert. It could be someone from, for example, Iran that was Muslim and now has accepted or has become a Christian or an atheist.

Loren McGinnis:               So do we have a sense of how many asylum seekers wind up in Alberta now?

Raj Sharma:                        Not that many now. What we have here is there’s two ways that Canada brings in refugees. One is resettlement, so that individuals are sort of selected, they’ve been vetted to some extent, they’ve been recognized as meeting the threshold for refugee definition by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and those individuals are resettled. So here, think of the Syrian population, for example, a few years ago. Other asylum seekers are those that make the claim in land. Now, that was relatively well managed until of course we had tens of thousands of individuals cross the border and they have caused a backlog. So the Immigration Refugee Board, it’s been around since about 1989, 1990. At its peak or so, it could handle about 40,000 or so claims, perhaps some more. We now have a backlog of about 200,000 claims at the Immigration Refugee Board.

Loren McGinnis:               And the majority of those are in Quebec and Ontario?

Raj Sharma:                        The vast majority end up in those two, our largest provinces. So yes, so you will have tens of thousands in Ontario and Quebec, and in fact, a refugee claim made in those two provinces have a significant, it will take several years for that claim to be heard. A claim that’s made in the Western provinces that’ll take significantly less, let’s say a year.

Loren McGinnis:               Okay. So this political conflict is rooted in this idea from the federal government that Ontario and Quebec help more than their fair share of asylum seekers. You outline the pressure on the system as it is, and the federal government says other provinces, Alberta included, need to step up. Is there validity in the case the federal minister is making?

Raj Sharma:                        Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. From a refugee advocate, it’s a little bit unfortunate that the claimants are being treated as hot potato to be shuffled between provinces. That would be their perspective. Of course, the federal plan and the federals do tend to jump, or at least there is the perspective, when Quebec says to jump, the federal government seems to ask how high. And so Quebec has said very strongly that they’re at their maximum, they’re at their peak, that asylum seekers are causing a strain on social services. That has been echoed by Ontario as well. There was a working group between the federal government and the provinces, and they (the feds) tried to push together this sort of reallocation of asylum seekers based on population. Now, the difficulty with that, of course, is section six of the charter, which guarantees freedom of movement. So one is that you would absolutely have to have the consent of the asylum seeker to shuffle them around, for example.

                                                Now Marc Miller, the Federal Immigration Minister, is indicating that it would also be done only with the consent of the particular province and would come with funding. And so Marc Miller, of course, this was leaked, and so we have some provinces saying adamantly, “No, we’re not going to take it.” That includes Alberta. Now, Mr. Miller has sort of doubled down with his tweeting and his media appearances, and he’s castigating in particular the Alberta Premier Daniel Smith for rejecting asylum seekers on this basis when Ms. Smith in the past has asked for increase in provincial nominee and has called for increase in Alberta population. Now of course one could say it’s disingenuous. Premier Smith is asking for increase in economic class immigrants and Mr. Miller is proposing to send refugee claimants, which may or may not bring with them economic skills necessary needed in the province.

Loren McGinnis:               I know there’s a backlog in just processing claims, but what are the other pressures that come to bear on a system and on communities with asylum seekers, with refugees who arrive?

Raj Sharma:                        Well, not just asylum seekers or refugees. There’s no need to single out asylum seekers, we can just say that there is significant issues with growth and population, and there’s a Globe and Mail article from two days ago that indicates that Alberta was forecasting, let’s say 3% population growth. We’re now well over 4.6%. And so what does that mean? Well, Alberta has seen significant intra or provincial migration net in migration from places like Ontario and Quebec as well. So whether it’s migrants or immigrants or whether it’s asylum seekers, we have in migration in Alberta particularly, so increased population means, of course, increased need for infrastructure, public services, schools, hospitals, what have you. There is of course a cost to population growth. In the short term, there could be increase in tax base, but of course in the long term, that means capital costs that necessarily will have to be made.

Loren McGinnis:               Yeah. Yeah. Part of growing population. Anyway, I also appreciate you kind of bringing it back over and over to people. It’s people. It’s people with stories and challenges and who are trying to make something happen in a good way and move towards safety and stability and that. So Raj, it’s good to speak with you. Thank you.

Raj Sharma:                        A pleasure always. Thank you.

Loren McGinnis:               You. That’s Raj Sharma. He’s an immigration lawyer here in Calgary with Stewart Sharma Harsanyi.

2024 09 16 CBC Interview Relocating Refugees