Saving Refugees

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that at the last count the world's total number of refugees expelled from their homelands, and other internally displaced persons, is between fourteen and fifteen million men, women and children. In 2005 British Columbia will admit approximately 250-300 individuals under the system for private sponsorships, and another 800 will arrive under the scheme for Government Assisted Refugees. But what are they amongst so many?

At the present time, Canada's refugee immigration program is caught in a tangle of competing pressures, rival interests, and unbounded good intentions. On the one side, there is a strong and vocal group of supporters for refugees, headed by the Canadian Council for Refugees, which lobbies incessantly for greater immigration quotas and for improved conditions in the re-settlement process once the refugees arrive.

On the other side, there are many Canadians who resent refugees (and immigrants), want to clamp down on new arrivals, and suspect that these newcomers will take jobs away from "good" Canadians.

The politicians are caught in the middle, some sympathizing with the humanitarian needs of refugees in traumatic circumstances, others denouncing them as impostors trying to jump the immigration queues. The bureaucracy is equally enmeshed in a web of contradictory priorities, with never enough resources to satisfy the refugees' advocates, and often embroiled in political situations overseas which overwhelm their best efforts.

The result is a paradoxical mixture, with some brilliantly successful rescue efforts of individuals in real danger, but also, too often, a display of bureaucratic ineptitude, corruption, delays and heart- wrenching disappointments. So too Canada enjoys a widespread reputation for its generous and welcoming attitude, developed over the past fifty years. But, at the same time, there are still many Canadians who maintain the attitude adopted in 1939 towards the European Jews "None is too many".

St Anthony's is a very normal Anglican parish, i.e. it is filled with good-hearted people, who give only limited thought to the political turmoil abroad, unless they appear on the evening TV news. But one of their parishioners, Brandon, was originally from Sierra Leone. When civil war broke out there three years ago, he received word from his sister that she and her kids had had to flee from their home. She didn't know where her husband was. But she was hoping to reach safety in the nearby country, the Ivory Coast.

Brandon asked the church wardens if they could help him sponsor his sister and her four children to come to Canada as refugees. St Anthony's rose to the challenge, enlisted the help of some neighbouring parishes, raised a large amount of money, sent off the sponsorship application forms, and then began to wait.

A year later, they had heard nothing. But then appeals came from the family, in dire need, in a foreign land. They sent an advance from their refugee fund to cover a month's living costs, and then another and another. They even phoned the Canadian Mission in the Ivory Coast direct, demanding an explanation for these intolerable delays. But they only found out that, as the Ivory Coast is a French-speaking country, the Mission is staffed entirely by francophones from Quebec.

Then the sister's husband showed up. The paper work had to be done all over again, ensuring more delays. The frustration level for Brandon and the valiant people of St Anthony's, who had made such strenuous efforts to raise funds and keep the interest going on behalf of this family, rose alarmingly. The parish had to cancel its subventions. The sister's husband was then arraigned by a United Nations investigative panel on charges of having committed war crimes back in Sierra Leone. After several more weeks, the Canadian mission turned down the family's application. Entry to Canada was refused. In Vancouver, the Canadian Immigration Commission brightly phoned St Anthony's to ask if they would like to sponsor another refugee family instead.

Penelope Mortlock is one of St Barbara's unsung saints. She is always willing to help. She taught Sunday school until her children grew up, and has organized innumerable coffee parties and rummage sales for good causes. More latterly she has given much of her time to the Outreach Committee. So when the Rector asked her for her assistance, she readily responded. "Well, he said, the immigration people want us to look after a Muslim girl, Saleem, from Afghanistan, who needs protection. Would you be willing?" Penelope hardly thought twice. "Of course I will. I have room in my house. My children are grown up. But what language does she speak? And how old is she?"

It turned out that Saleem had been cruelly abused by her husband and his family, and had fled over the border to Iran. She was considered to be at risk and in need of resettlement. But it also turned out that she had been married at eleven and was still only seventeen. So the provincial authorities who look after unaccompanied and adopted minors had to be called in.

Then Saleem was denied an exit visa — until presumably some official was bribed to let her go. By the time she arrived in Vancouver, Penelope had summoned the aid of anyone capable of speaking a variety of Middle East tongues—just in case. When they met at the airport, Saleem rushed up to Penelope and kissed her three times on the cheek. She said the only word she knew in English: Thank you.

The next day, Penelope took her down to the School Board, who wanted to send her to Burnaby to enroll in ESL classes for her language group. "No way, said Penelope. She's going to our local high school, and St Barbara's youth group is going to look after her there." And so it was arranged, and the sponsorship proceeds very happily.

Turning to a case which has already made national newspaper headlines, Amir Kazemian is an Iranian refugee whose application for refugee status was turned down by the Refugee Determination Board. There is no mechanism for appeal. He had to escape from Iran because he had participated in protests against the regime. His father was an active political dissident who was imprisoned and beaten up until expelled from the country. His mother also came to Canada, and was granted refugee status. But at the end of June, Amir received a letter telling him to report for deportation back to Iran, which he knew would lead to his being forcibly imprisoned or worse. So he sought sanctuary in St Michael's Church on East Broadway. Five months later he is still there.

In July, the Minister of Immigration, Judy Sgro, publicly ticked off the churches for giving sanctuary to people she considered to be "bogus refugees". Churches, she said, should not be complicit in attempts to run circles around Canada's immigration regulations.

In September, she relented enough to promise to look again, if the church leaders would-undertake full moral and financial responsibility for these sanctuary cases. In Amir's case, letters were written on his behalf by the Rector of St Michael's, by Bishop Ingham for the diocese, by the Anglican Primate, Archbishop Hutchison, and by the valiant volunteers of the Vancouver Association for the Survivors of Torture. But Amir has still not been released, and is confined to living in the church basement, unable to leave the premises and dependent on others for his welfare.

Last week, in my capacity as Chairman of the Diocesan Refugee Unit, I received a letter from Amir, written in Farsi, the language of Iran. In translation, it reads:

Dear Mr John,

Bad people in my country with evil thoughts have attacked me and forced me to leave my home. It has been a torment for me. I prayed that God would find me a safe refuge, because I was sure that God meant well for me. And I always felt that God would look after me and provide for me. That is why I am so grateful to be herein Canada.

I want to thank you for all the efforts you have done for me.

Amir.

Meanwhile, out at UBC, a much more successful program for helping refugees is in full swing. For the last 23 years, the students of UBC, whether they know it or not, have annually each contributed $1 of their student activity fees to a special Refugee Fund. This means that two or three refugee students have been sponsored every year, mostly from Africa. The university pays their tuition fees as long as they are studying, and the student fund provides board and lodging, clothes, books, bus fare and pocket money. The program has already produced two PhDs, and placed numerous graduates in responsible positions. One or two have even managed to return to their homeland, which is after all the dream of almost every refugee.

An enormous and traumatic chasm exists between the desperate conditions in the Kakuma Camp in north-west Kenya, where 90,000 refugees are kept under guard in the arid heat of the barren desert, and the lush conditions of UBC's student residences. The handful of students who have managed to leave their Kenyan exile and have been selected to come to Vancouver to resume their studies here are understandably full of praise for Canada's refugee immigration system. But who are they amongst so .many?

Canada's Private Sponsorship of Refugees program, now celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, has enabled 180,000 refugees to start a new life in Canada. Despite all the delays and procedural difficulties, and the resulting disappointments and disillusionment for their supporters in the churches, the program has seen a remarkable mobilization of Canadian goodwill to enable these men, women and children to find a new home in Canada. But painfully slow processing times, delayed communication and seemingly arbitrary case management practices are endangering this much-praised program. The Canadian churches have so far played a prominent and commendable role in assisting these victims of international violence. They now need to step up their efforts to achieve improvements in the system, and at the same time to bring new hope to more refugees for a better life in the years to come.

John Conway

This column first appeared in Cornerstone, the St. James parish newsletter. Dr. Conway of St. James, Vancouver, heads the Diocesan Refugee Unit. He has changed the names of some of the parishes and people involved to protect privacy.