Adrienne A.:

No, we won’t be here that long, I promise you. You get a little bit of a break.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible 00:00:06]

Adrienne A.:

Yes it’s on right now.

Speaker 2:

We’re live.

Adrienne A.:

Excellent. Thanks, everybody, for stepping up and joining us. Maybe it’s Periscope, maybe it’s Facebook, maybe it’s YouTube. I’m Adrienne Arsenault, one of the 37 hosts of The National. No, sorry, there are only four of us. We are having what we call a national conversation, and we’re going to have a lot of them in the next little while, but this one’s really important.

Joining me is Avvy Go. Avvy works at the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. You deal every single day with people in need. Raj Sharma, thank you for joining us. Raj used to work at the Immigration Refugee Board of Canada, now an immigration lawyer in Calgary.

You guys are on the front line of this. What is this? This is the big question. We are in an era now where people are on the move on this planet in extraordinary ways. There are all sorts of pressures that are pushing people to leave. Obviously you have the crisis, the seven-year conflict in Syria pushing millions of people out.

We’re seeing a different type of conflict in Latin South America. Venezuelans are leaving their country at a staggering rate, not because of war, but because of economic desperation. A lot of these people are going wherever they can, and some are coming to Canada. We’ve seen across Canada’s border the last little while, those pictures, I know you’ve all seen them, of people trudging through the snow and being greeted by our CMP officers. So there have been lots of questions. What’s irregular? What’s legal? What’s illegal? What’s a migrant versus a refugee? Who’s getting what?

A lot of this language is loaded and is being used for political means by people on all ends of the spectrum. We thought, you know what? Let’s just cut to the bone here and figure out where the truth is in all this.  If we can just start with this loaded language, can you just help us understand migrant, refugee, asylum seeker? Help us with the terms. What means what?

Avvy Go:

I could start. I guess just from my perspective, migrant usually just refer to a number of people who are on the move from one country to the next. When we talk about migrant in Canada, very often is in the context of the migrant workers, or people who are on temporary foreign worker’s permit. They tend not to have a permanent status in Canada. They’re here on some kind of a status, as you said, to find a better life for themselves and for their kids.

When I think of refugees, I think of people who are fleeing country of origin because of something that is happening to them, either because they’re facing persecution or risk of torture. Something very serious that affects their lives and liberty, and they have no choice but to leave that country, to go to places that are perceived to be safer, countries like Canada.

Asylum seekers or refugee claimants will be people who are in that process, to establish they are a refugee in the third country.

Adrienne A.:

Okay, so when we talk about the act, Raj, of coming across the border, we get questions all the time, and please feel free to send as many questions as you want, we’re here to try to answer them. What’s an irregular border crossing? What’s an illegal border crossing? What is, sometimes you hear people saying normal border crossing, help us with those terms if you can.

Raj:

Well I think at a certain point terms become unhelpful. I think that Tristin Hopper, of the National Post discussed this. He canvased a number of stakeholders on this topic as well.

So the term illegal border crosser or irregular border crosser probably reveals a little bit about your own world view.

Adrienne A.:

You mean when you utter that term it exposes where your biases are?

Raj:

These are loaded terms. I think that the terms are actually unhelpful. When we look at, for example, refugee claimant, either you are or you aren’t. A refugee claimant can be made at the port of entry. It can be made inside Canada. These border crossers that have come 30,000 now in the last 18 months or so, are refugee claimants.

Canada has an obligation, under the charter, and international obligations to give refugee claimants a hearing. To determine whether they are individuals that are persecuted, that are in need of protection. Refugee is the relevant term of art. I want to move away from their mode of arrival. Whether they arrive at a port of entry or whether they cross not at a port of entry.

Adrienne A.:

I appreciate that you want to move away from it but I think part of what happens is people see the image of someone crossing into Canada not at a regulated border crossing and it feels illegal to them.

Raj:

Correct. You’re right. It’s perception and that is a misperception. When we have a refugee claimant and were signatory to 1957 conventional refugees, refugees don’t tend to show up with Visas and other paraphernalia that other immigrants might have. That’s recognized. We have individuals that are desperate. We know that their desperate and we know that their not going to do things the sort of quote unquote what an economic migrant might do. So we allow certain individuals make a claim at the port of entry. If you make a claim, after crossing the border, not at a port of entry you can make an in land refugee claim. 

Adrienne A.:

So what does that mean? If you have a family from Nigeria, for example, who is crossing in the snow from Wroxham into Quebec, and is greeted by an RCMP officer, the act of crossing is illegal but it’s not illegal once they’ve said “I want to make a claim.”

Raj:

..It’s not quite a criminal act because while the contravention, i.e. crossing a border does break technically a law, the law itself is stayed, – the consequences are stayed until the refugee claim is adjudicated. So there is a provision. Okay, you’re supposed to present yourself at a port of entry and if you don’t you’re breaking X law. But if you make a refugee claim, X law doesn’t apply to you. Even that term “illegal” to me is nebulous, it’s gray. How can it be strictly illegal when there is another act that moves to prevent the operation of that act?

Adrienne A.:

Right, I see. So someone comes across, contravening technically, the law but as soon as that person presents him or herself and makes the claim, then the other act balances it out.

Raj:

There is nuance here. I know everyone wants these sort of black and white answers that you cross the border irregularly or not at a port of entry you’re committing an illegal act and that’s not quite true. For example, let’s say you’ve been deported in the past. You can not reenter Canada without authorization. Crossing the border would then be an illegal act. If you’ve come into Canada, irregularly and you make a refugee claim and you’re eligible to make refugee claim, that act is, that provision is stayed. There is no consequences for doing what you’ve done until the refugee claim is decided.

Adrienne A.:

Okay.  [crosstalk 00:07:47]

We’re starting to get some questions in already, this one from YouTube and Avvy you can help us with this. What rights do these migrants have once they’re on Canadian territory?

Avvy Go:

We’re going back to migrants. So I assume we are actually still talking about refugees and refugee claimants. We are talking of people that are crossing the border from the states into Quebec and other parts of Canada to make refugee claims.

I think, as Raj has mentioned, once they are here they have the right to make a claim for protection in Canada. That’s partly because Canada has signed on to the convention for the rights of refugees. We have within our law the opportunity for these claimants to make that claim. They can stay here until their claim is being determined and Raj used to be on the Immigration Refugee Board. That’s the body that will determine whether or not someone is, in fact, a refugee.

During that time they can apply for a work permit. Work in Canada. It depends on which providence they live, they may be able to access some provincial benefits but in general, refugee claimants have very little access to benefits that we Canadians, people who are permanent residents, or citizens will have access to. Their rights are more prescribed, I would say. We have an obligation, under the international law and under our charter, and under the immigration law, to adjudicate their claim.

Adrienne A.:

One of the questions you hear, quite often from people, and again this may be a matter of simply a misperception, people not understanding how it works. With the people who are crossing the border in that fashion that you described, is the act of offering them what Canada is obliged to offer under law mean that they jump a queue, mean that somebody else doesn’t get some they’re entitled to, someone who came in through an airport?

Avvy Go:

There isn’t really a queue for people who are coming into our border to make a refugee claim. There’s a huge queue in the backlog system right now for the claims to be processed because the government, especially the previous government, hasn’t really put in the resources to process the claim. It’s not like Canada is saying, “We only accept that many immigrants if we take that many refugees.” I don’t think any of the government has said that.

Adrienne A.:

There are two streams, right?

Avvy Go:

They’re completely different but also the government may decide from time to time to say we’re going to accept how many government sponsored refugees. For instance, Trudeau said, “This year I’m going to take 25,000 refugees from Syria.” So they are directly sponsored by the government or they are sponsored through private sponsorship holders who have agreement with the government. So they came in as conventional refugees. The claimants, they come in, they file a claim, there isn’t really a queue for them and they are not taking away the seats for anybody else.

Adrienne A.:

Okay, it’s confusing. Raj?

Raj:

That term, again, is a problematic term. I don’t like the term queue at all. If someone believes that inland refugee claimants are jumping a queue I don’t think there is anything I can say to convince that person otherwise. Again, that concept is a world view. The concept of a queue is very important to Canadians because Canadians we’ve been taught since elementary school not to budge, stay in line. So this concept of individuals crossing the border of their own volition [inaudible 00:11:36] deeply held believe but logically there is no queue. It’s not, not really a queue, it’s not, it’s kind of a queue, there is no queue. There is no queue for inland refugee claimants. You come and you make a refugee claim. Whether it is at a port of entry like an airport, or an inland office, or land port of entry crossing from the US.

Adrienne A.:

If we can presume for a moment that the question is being asked in all innocence without a sense of bias, that someone is genuinely asking if someone comes in this way and is dealt with this way is someone else not being helped? Is something not happening because there is an influx from a different direction?

Raj:

We can certainly talk about the cost that refugee claimants or inland refugee claimants may impose on municipal, or provincial, or federal resources. They are entitled, for example, to a certain degree of healthcare. They are entitled to provincial social assistance, for example. In terms of a queue, they are going to make a refugee claim, their claim is going to be determined by the Immigration Refugee Board or by the Refugee Protection Division of the IRB. The government sponsored refugees is a completely different stream, if you will. That is unaffected. That processing is unaffected by these individuals that are crossing the border into Canada.

We can certainly talk about the case that the more claimants that come across the border, the greater the incentive for other individuals to come in. While their claims are adjudicated, and there’s a 50,000 backlog, that term I’ll accept.  That’s real. So it will take years to get a hearing. During those years they are going to have a work permit, they’re going to set down roots here and it remains to be seen how removal is then going to occur. These are all legitimate questions that can be asked but I take issue with the premise of certain terms because it leads us into these traps that then don’t allow light.

Adrienne A.:

Right.

Avvy Go:

Also, I think it’s important to remember the people that are crossing the border now are not the first ever refugee claimants that come in Canada through that way. Every day there are people who are coming in. From my experience working with mostly refugee claimants from China, they also have done that before because if they can’t take a direct flight from China to Canada sometimes they will fly to somewhere in the States. Then they will somehow cross the border. Just like the ones who are doing that right now because of the Safe Third Country Agreement that Canada has signed with the US. That makes it impossible for them to just show up at the border and make a claim. So we created that situation ourself by signing an agreement with the United States that would not allow people who come in directly through the United States to make a claim here. That’s why they have to cross the border in this irregular way.

Adrienne A.:

We have a question here from Sandra Shar who was asking on Facebook, “Are these asylum seekers coming across the border documented? Do we have real numbers of what we need to deal with?” Was how Sandra phrased that.

Raj:

The surge is unprecedented. The last time we had numbers of this magnitude it was right after 2001 and that’s when myself and my law partner were refugee protection officers at the IRB. About that time, about 20,000. This surge is unprecedented. About 30,000 in the last 18 months or so. We do have numbers. We don’t have a lot of numbers. The IRB has just released some statistics so we are looking at approximately 30,000. We’ve got a 55,000 backlog. Our IRB system can handle about 20,000 per year. The top country so far, Nigeria. Out of the 30,000 it’s 10,000, a third, is from Nigeria. Followed by about seven or 8,000 is from Haiti and then the numbers drop off significantly after that. What we need to understand is that this may well be either the tip of the iceberg or the calm before the storm. We’ve got 30,000 and right now this is a challenge but this is not a crisis.

The IRB is not collapsing but Donald Trump has canceled TPS status of El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Nepalese, Somalian, Sudanese. You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of individuals in the US with precarious status. They’re between a rock and a hard place. What are their choices? They’re going to stick around and deal with ICE and this hard line Trumpian philosophy or they’re going to go back to war ravaged, violent, or corrupt countries? Or they might start looking up north to Canada.

This may be the calm before the storm and we’ve survived so long. Canada has been able to maintain it’s immigration system, refugee determination systems, because we had the US to the south. This sort of welcoming, benign, wealthy neighbor. That welcoming philosophy was inscribed on that statue of Liberty. We were like that remora on that great white shark and just picking off what the great white shark wouldn’t take. We’ve been very very lucky to pick and chose our own immigrants and been able to look down our noses at the US. Now all of a sudden that attitude, that philosophy, has changed. This surge is not going to abate until Trump, that Trumpian philosophy is going to abate.

Adrienne A.:

Interesting. Okay Sandy Chase asked a question. Okay, Sandy you asked, and we’ve heard so many versions of this question, “Why do we need to financially support them before they get permanent residency?” I’m not clear if that’s a question about ethics or law, but that’s the question.

Avvy Go:

I think it’s in part because of our international obligation but I think it’s also wrong to assume that we are financially supporting them all the way until they get permanent resident status. As we have both mentioned earlier, once you make the claim, you can apply for a work permit. In fact, many of our clients do apply for work permit because they don’t want to be on social assistance. They don’t want to rely on government support. They do want to find a job.

However, sometimes, they do have difficulties finding jobs because who are they? Refugee status with a work permit. There are a lot of employers out there who would not hire them and those who do tend to see this an opportunity to exploit. An employer will pay you according to your status. If you’re a permanent residents you get minimum wage. If you’re a refugee with a work permit, you get less than minimum wage. So they are very subject to exploitation out there. By in large, I would say in my experience a lot of refugee claimants, even after, they may spend those first few months on social assistance but as soon as they get a job, they get off social assistance so they can get on with their life.

Adrienne A.:

Just to go back to Sandy’s question there, is why? [crosstalk 00:18:41]

Avvy Go:

Because we do have that international obligation.

Raj:

I would characterize it in the sense that they have legal status in Canada. They are entitled to access provincial benefits. There’s citizens of Canada, there’s permanent residents of Canada, and those individuals with legal status in Canada. Work permit holders, and students for example, and refugees. So with that status and their residency they are entitled to access provincial benefits. They are entitled to interim federal health care as well.

Avvy Go:

Except the provinces sometimes, including Ontario, their social assistance legislation may not always provide for anyone with precarious status. I don’t know about other provinces but certainly that’s one of the issues that often people without status face.

Raj:

There is a cost to refugee claimants. Now the previous government, when Jason Kenney, the then Minister of Immigration, announced these refugee reforms they calculated the cost, per claim, up to $50,000. We don’t have the numbers from this government in terms of cost because there are costs. There’s going to be funding for legal aid is desperately needed. These individuals may require psychological or other advanced, sort of, medical intervention. For example, housing and of course social assistance until they get on their feet, until they get that work permit. There are costs associated with the refugee claims and it is going to be an issue for many Canadians. It’s an understandable one.

Adrienne A.:

It’s certainly an issue in the questions we are already receiving. Again from Irish Quinn, on Facebook, and I can see from the way that the question is written that there’s some anger here. Correct me if I’m wrong Irish. “How about we take care of all the citizens we already have who are in need before anyone else gets it?” How many times have you heard that question?

Avvy Go:

I do hear that a lot but I don’t really see it as an either or. There are many benefits that Canadian citizens have that refugee claimants don’t have access to. It’s not like because you are giving it to refugee claimants that we are denying that benefits to citizens. Certainly you can always question why we are not spending more money on improving healthcare for citizens or permanent residents. We can can beef up affordable housing program which the government has really not lived up to and we now have a national housing strategy. We have to have a national poverty reduction strategy to deal with poverty among all Canadians. So all of that are legitimate concerns but it’s not that the government has chosen to provide those services to refugees and because of that we have not dealt with our own people. That’s not the reason at all. The reason is, I think successive government has simply failed to deal with some of the day to day needs of Canadians period. Now refugees become an easy scapegoat for ourselves.

Adrienne A.:

You look like you’re thinking hard there. I can almost see steam coming out of your ears.

Raj:

Well, I think that is a common sentiment. I think when you look at this situation. This is Adrienne, I think an intractable problem. There’s no easy solution. They’re entitled by law to come into Canada and make a refugee claim and by virtue of that status they are entitled to accessing certain benefits and our social support systems here. If anyone thinks we’re going to build an 8,000 km long fence and patrol it, if anyone thinks that somehow we’re going to repeal the STC, the Safe Third Country Agreement without the Americans on board, if anyone thinks we can simply willy nilly pick them up and drop them off on the other side of the US border and wash our hands of it then this is pie in the sky thinking.  There are certain consequences that are going to flow from this and it’s unavoidable but I do understand the sentiment behind that question.

Adrienne A.:

Practical question here from Donald Custerhow from YouTube, “How long do these claims, on average, take to be filed and processed?” You talked about a backlog and I’m watching the calendar days flip by.

Raj:

This is like trying to catch a falling knife. ..If anyone were to say, “well it’s going to take two years right now.” Well, you’ve got a system that can handle 20,000 refugee claims or finalize them per year and you’re getting X number over and above that so now you’ve got a backlog. We’ve got 55,000 backlogged. So let’s say refugee claims, everyone stopped making refugee claims today, it would take two years plus just to clear this backlog. Right now, anyone that says its two years plus, I would probably say, and again this is like a snowball rolling down a hill, more people make a refugee claim, the longer it takes to get a refugee hearing, the more their relatives and friends in the US see that this a viable option, more people cross the border. It might, what if it takes five years, what if it takes ten years to get a hearing done? Our system is simply not designed to handle these types of numbers.

At a certain point we may have to deal with grappling with an amnesty. We may have to grant amnesty to large numbers because our system was simply not designed for this surge. Our system was designed because we had Jupiter to ourselves who was sucking in with its massive gravitational pull, this issue. [crosstalk 00:24:22]

Adrienne A.:

Jupiter being the United States?

But why is there not a discussion about beefing up the IRB system? Beefing up the means of processing?

Avvy Go:

Well, this current government has recently appointed, made a lot more appointments to the IRB system and I think that they are still trying to deal with the backlog. I think as Raj suggests, may groups have been calling on the government to think about having a regularization process because let’s say if you have claimants from certain country with very clear track records of human rights violations. In particular, for instance, if you’re LGBTQ member or if your women at risk, maybe you shouldn’t have to wait for five years before you get your refugee status. We actually have been recently talking to some of the senators and other to talk about the possibility of having that program so that you kind of clear out some of that backlog as soon as possible.

Adrienne A.:

Okay, and it’s interesting. Deb Sumfi, you asked us a question, and it’s something we were talking about earlier and it absolutely bares worth repeating. “Refugee versus asylum seeker?” I know you don’t like the terms but people don’t like genuinely want to understand and want to sure they use it. What is the difference between the two?

Raj:

Functionally, there is no difference between the two. An asylum seeker is a refugee. Refugee is a term of art. A refugee is defined under section 96 and 97 of the Immigration Refugee Protection Act. It is an individual that is outside of his or her country that fears persecution by reason of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

There’s another definition as well. A person that is in need of protection. The act of asylum could result in the status of refugee or refugee claim itself is an asylum claim.

Those terms are basically interchangeable. In the US, they tend to use the word asylum more, in Canada we tend to use the word refugee more.

Adrienne A.:

Okay, fair enough. So just a note about online, what’s happening online here. There are lots of people, we see you, lot’s of people on Facebook having conversations with each other about this discussion. I know sometimes when you’re talking about this subject people start poking at each other. It pushes all sorts of buttons. So, clearly this is a discussion Canadians are having. Why is it so divisive? Why does this one have people going to an angry place so quickly?

Avvy Go:

You know, I think Canadians can be very generous if they chose to. Historically, for instance, we have accepted tens of thousands of Indo-Chinese refugees, the boat people, during the Civil War and Vietnam. Nobody blinked, we just take in 40 or 50,000 of them all at once. But right now…

Adrienne A.:

A source of huge pride for Canada.

Avvy Go:

Yeah, exactly. We got a medal for that but now I think maybe it’s the political climate. Having Trump as president doesn’t help because it does change the narrative. It does change the rhetoric. It also doesn’t help our own politicians are using refugees as a wedge issue. I see that from time to time. This is not just happening today. To blame them for the housing crisis in Toronto for instance. We have been talking about housing crisis in Toronto for the last 15 years. It has nothing to do with refugees but you know, they get blamed.

I think media have a role to play as well. Certainly CBC’s decision not to use the word illegal and now I see you using the word irregular, it helps because it helps people reframe or rethink the issue. I think we all have an obligation to really learn about the issue so that we can have an informed discussion, an informed opinion about this.

Adrienne A.:

The night president Trump was elected, if I may, I was in Washington at the time and I was outside the White House and a very drunk man in a Make America Great hat came up and was a little pushy with us. He sort of put his finger in my face and said, “you Canadians are so smug. And you’re so smug because you don’t have to deal with what we have to deal with. Nobody is banging on your door, just you wait.” And then he sort of tootled off like this.

Raj:

Wise drunken words.

Adrienne A.:

Interesting drunken words and I thought about him a lot because I do think a lot of Canadians, we’re very detached from the matter of people scrambling to get in out of desperation to the country because it hasn’t been a Canadian reality all that much.

Raj:

This has always been a divisive issue. Look back to Shakespeare, Sir Thomas More, that speech about Protestants in England. I mean, if you look at it, the Arab Spring, Isis, Syria. The migrant flows out of Syria caused the rise of far right anti-immigrant political parties in Europe. Germany took in a million. If you look at Brexit, Brexit wasn’t about bureaucrats in Brussels. Brexit was about this concept of hoards of brown people flooding into the UK and the loss of control, sovereignty. Now Brexit was about, okay we’re expecting 60,000 Polish workers and they got 600,000. The Polish workers drove down the wages of native Britishers at the lower wage levels.

We’ve never had that problem in Canada because we selected highly skilled immigrants. When we select highly skilled immigrants they are not competing against the lower education or lower wage Canadians or native born population. Because we were able to select our immigrants we never had this feeling, this nativist sentiment. Nativist sentiment is created when you lose control over or there is a perceived lack of control. So when we chose individuals, we’re welcoming, we’re multicultural, and it works. When immigrants, or migrants, or asylum seekers chose us that strikes a chord, this nativist chord.

Avvy Go:

But don’t forget, Canada turned away Jewish refugees during the second world war. According to one of the immigration officers, one is too many when it comes to Jews, right? So it’s not true that we have not dealt with this before but in fact, in much part of our history we have turned them away. We started to receive them in the 70s. I don’t know, for whatever reasons, we found our values or whatnot.

Adrienne A.:

I think it started with Chile and a leak of a whistleblower, a Canadian who found a document a communique from the embassy who actually exposed to I think the NVP and then the media. Look how desperate these people are and the door is open.

Avvy Go:

I would want to appeal to Canadians, even if you come as an immigrant, for instance I came as an immigrant myself. My parents were refugees. They were in China and because of all kinds of problems in China, the Japanese occupation, all that kind of reason, they left China as refugees. Right? Then eventually they make their way to Canada and I think that kind of story is true for many Canadians. Even you yourself may not have come as refugee, you may have picked Canada as an immigrant. I’m sure somewhere in the history of your family they must have had to flee because of unrest or other certain situations in their home country. So think about how your ancestors would feel if they are here today and we turned them away because, you know.

Adrienne A.:

Right and we have a question here that comes with a few exclamation marks from Tammy Peters on Facebook. “Can you talk about the Safe Third County Agreement? Are they not allowed to make refugee claim once they are already in the states and why can’t they go back to the United States because the United States is a safe country?” There is a lot in there but again, can we get a bare bones explanation of the Safe Third Country Agreement?

Raj:

I’ll do my best. After 2001, we approached the US and we requested the Safe Third Country Agreement. We felt that individuals would cross into Canada to make a refugee claim and so the Safe Third Country Agreement’s premise, the premise of the Safe Third Country Agreement is that a refugee adjudication agreement between Canada and the US are about equal or analogous. That is going to be tested in the courts. So the Safe Third Country Agreement indicates that while you’re in the US or wherever you land first, let’s say you land in Canada first and you’ve got to make a refugee claim in Canada. If you land in the US you’ve got to make a refugee claim in the US. In the US they don’t want [inaudible 00:33:30] so you can’t go to a port of entry and make a refugee claim. Now, remember, what did we do before the STC? People in the past, in the US, they would go up to a port of entry and they would make a refugee claim at the port of entry. So we survived without the STC and obviously we have the STC now.

Now the STC has a number of exemptions so let’s say you’re in the US, you go up to a port of entry they’re going to say, “no you can’t enter Canada, you can’t make a refugee claim here unless you’ve got some relatives, unless you’re an unaccompanied minor.” There are some exemptions. So what do people do? They’ll go around that port of entry. So the Safe Third Country Agreement does not apply to in Canada refugee claims. Let’s say you go ten feet away from a regular port of entry and you get apprehended there. Well that’s an in Canada refugee claim and it doesn’t apply to you.

Now the Conservatives have suggested a proposal to extend the STC across that entire border so it doesn’t matter. Now you’re going to have people that are going to cross illegally. They’re going to remain underground.

Ironically, if you want an orderly immigration system you’re going to want these individuals to make that claim so that we can check out them, do security checks, vet them, and then process their claims. If you actually want an orderly immigration system you’re going to actually encourage them to do what they’re doing. The vast majority being apprehended, for example, in Laval or Ontario. The STC is there, it remains to be seen whether the STC will survive court challenge. Whether the US remains a safe country with the detention of children with the separation of families. That’s going to be up in the air. The STC is not some panacea. The STC is not some sort of cure all that somehow because of the STC they can’t make this claim. The STC is exactly why they’re crossing irregularly because it prevents them from making a claim at a recognized port of entry.

Adrienne A.:

Okay, last question. It’s come from a few people it looks like. Brianne May, is for example, one of the people who asked it. “Alright, so what’s your answer? What’s your solution?”

Avvy Go:

Well I think there is not one single solution. In an ideal world we should try to get at the root cause as to why refugees are created in the first place. I mean, that takes miracle probably.

Adrienne A.:

To help people to stay in their countries and to help those countries[crosstalk 00:36:01] to be the sort of place people want to stay.

Avvy Go:

To inject human rights systems into countries like China. This is another source of refugees and to have a rule of law system in these countries to get rid of corruption. That would be the ideal.

Short of that, I think we do have an obligation and we do just have to find a way that makes the most sense to process the claimants as they arrive. I personally think that we should get rid of the Safe Third Country Agreement. Either way they’re coming in. At least if they are coming in through the border, we will not have media report about people crossing the border illegally. They will just be processed. Just like everybody else.

Raj:

I want human rights and respect for human rights and equality and the rule of law in these source countries too but, you know, I would also like to believe in unicorns and pixie dust. The reality is that if we could hope and pray, let’s say, that the US refugee adjudication system becomes analogous or truly the same as ours. If that occurs then people will not have an incentive to come to Canada. They’ll say, “well the US system is just as generous as Canada’s system so let’s just make the claim here.” They’re coming here because there is perception that the Canadian refugee system is more generous than the US one and that perception is correct.

…

Raj:

So that’s one possibility where the refugee systems align and incentive is removed. That’s one possibility. In reality, talk to me in a couple of years or sooner. The surge in irregular border crossings will subside as soon as Trumpism subsides in the US.

Adrienne A.:

That’s a whole separate discussion for another day. Listen, thank you every much for your questions, you’ve been very patient, very inquisitive. This is a conversation we are going to have to keep having. So, we will be joined tonight, the pair of you will join us as well as Jean-Nicolas Beuze who is the UNHCR’s representative in Canada. So we’re going to try to tackle more of these questions. We’ve had some from all across the country. We will roll up our sleeves and we will deal with this, this national conversation. 

Alright, so that will be on The National tonight at nine, ten, eleven, twelve, one, Eastern. I have a feeling there will be more questions online that we’ll try to answer.