Bill C-31: Past wrongs and present-day injustices

Japanese Canadians being relocated to camps in the interior of British Columbia after the outbreak of World War II.

Canada is a country of contradiction. On the one hand, it has an international reputation as one of the world’s most compassionate and humanitarian countries. On the other, Canada is tainted by historical injustices committed by the Canadian government against specific groups simply because of who they were, not what they did.

That contradiction has from time to time manifested itself in this country’s treatment of immigrants, refugees and Canadians of racial minority descent, both past and present. To its credit, the Canadian government has apologized and redressed many of these past wrongs. But has it learned the lessons of history? Apparently not.

Before the House of Commons is the proposed Bill C-31 — an omnibus bill on Canada’s refugee system. If passed, the bill has the potential to inflict untold pain and injustice on a whole new generation of asylum seekers.

Bill C-31 gives the government the power to detain refugees — including women and children — with no judicial oversight. It discriminates against asylum seekers based on their country of origin by allowing the minister to designate so-called “safe countries” and to deny refugees from those nations the right to appeal. Above all, the bill empowers the minister to deport legitimate refugees — even after they have become permanent residents — simply on the minister’s say-so that they will not face danger if returned to their home country.

Not only does this bill run contrary to the tradition of humanitarianism so many Canadians are proud of, it returns Canada to the days when racism and xenophobia were part of our official immigration policy.

Our history is replete with such examples of discrimination. Among the first to suffer from legally sanctioned racism were Chinese immigrants, who were subject first to a head tax and then to an immigration exclusion act, the sole purpose of both being to restrict and exclude people of Chinese descent.

During World War II, Japanese Canadians became refugees in their own country, declared personae non gratae by their own government. More than 22,000 Canadians of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps, and 4,000 more were deported to Japan, a country most of them had never set foot in.

Canadians also stood by while our government turned away Jews fleeing Nazi persecution because, in the words of an immigration officer, when it comes to Jews, “none is too many.”

A mere three decades later, the generosity of Canadians and our country finally shone. Collectively, Canadians put out our welcome mat for boatloads of Indochinese refugees. The then Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark initiated a program to accept every Vietnamese refugee who arrived through private sponsorship. Canada has been enriched by these refugees-turned-citizens, who became an important part of the Canadian fabric and made significant contributions to the building of our nation.

Like canaries in the coal mine, conscientious and fair-minded Canadians are beginning to sense the toxins that are poisoning our country. They are beginning to question the fear-mongering and demonizing of the desperate people who are knocking on our door as they escape from global environmental, economic and political devastation.

By instilling fear instead of promoting compassion, Bill C-31 asks Canadians to turn our backs on those who need our assistance, and to forgo our core values as a just and open society. This is a bill that all fair-minded Canadians should reject.

Our government certainly has the right to design a refugee-determination system that would screen out illegitimate claims. But such a system must be tempered with compassion for asylum seekers and respect for the Charter of Rights and international law.

The government achieved that balance when it reached a compromise with the opposition parties to pass Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which gives all claimants the right to appeal while granting the government tools to speed up not-so-meritorious claims. Bill C-31, on the other hand, is overkill.

Let’s not forget that, aside from the aboriginal peoples, we are all immigrants and refugees, or their descendants.

Canadians deserve a balanced and compassionate approach to our immigration and refugee system. Let’s not repeat our historical wrongs. Let’s stop Bill C-31.