Canada’s sweeping border bill ‘an attack’ on asylum seekers’ rights, says human rights group

Anna Triandafyllidou, a migration expert and professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, speaks about Bill C-2's potential impact.

While the Canadian government says its proposed Bill C-2 will improve the immigration and asylum system, a human rights group is calling some of the measures “an attack” on refugees’ right to seek asylum.

Amnesty International Canada said in a press release Thursday that the bill, if passed, would make it “virtually impossible” for the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) to review refugee claims from most people entering Canada via the United States.

Moreover, Amnesty International Canada says the bill would prevent people who have been in Canada for more than a year from seeking refugee status. People facing harm, including persecution and torture, in their countries could be “unfairly denied” refugee protection by Canada, it added.

Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section, said seeking asylum is a human right.

“With Bill C-2, the Canadian government threatens to chip away at that right, making it harder for people seeking safety and freedom to file an asylum claim and have it assessed fairly,” Nivyabandi said in a statement Thursday. ”This attack on the right to seek asylum will severely diminish Canada’s international standing when it comes to protecting human rights.”

Referring to the measures affecting immigrants and asylum seekers, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said in a press release Tuesday that Bill C-2, or the Strong Borders Act, would address what it called growing migration pressures by making the immigration and asylum systems stronger, efficient and more flexible.

A separate news release Tuesday from Public Safety Canada said the changes will improve the “integrity and fairness of our immigration system while protecting Canadians’ privacy and Charter rights.” The federal government says it will also work with American border and law enforcement agencies to strengthen the border and combat organized crime.

While the bill is “less explicit” than the Trump administration’s rhetoric in linking immigration and asylum seekers to crime and drug trafficking, human rights lawyer Julia Sande said the proposed measures are “concerning.”

“We don’t agree that it makes the system more efficient, and we’re also concerned about the linking of asylum seekers ... to things like fentanyl and guns at the border, like asylum seekers have nothing to do with border safety,” Sande, a human rights law and policy campaigner with Amnesty International Canada in Toronto, said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca on Thursday. “These are people who are fleeing persecution, torture, discrimination, violence, who are looking to Canada for safety and Canada is trying to slam the door on them, and so we’re really concerned about this bill.”

In response to concerns from critics and advocacy groups about some of the rules, Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said the border bill has safeguards upholding civil rights and due process, The Canadian Press reported Wednesday.

Affected asylum seekers would still have a chance to make their case through pre-removal risk assessments, she added. This safeguard would apply to those whose asylum claims are not referred to the IRB under the new rules, according to the IRCC.

The process would still consider each individual’s situation and may result in granting claimants refugee protection, the IRCC said in an email to CTVNews.ca on Thursday.

The IRCC said the proposed measure builds upon recent changes made to “deter irregular migration and strengthen border management.” Canada and the U.S. expanded the Safe Third Country Agreement in 2023, but the proposed rule won’t affect the agreement, it added.

But the pre-removal risk assessment would deny people seeking asylum a right to a hearing by the Immigration and Refugee Board, which assesses and makes decisions on asylum claims, and force them into a separate system where they are not guaranteed a hearing, Sande said.

“When you get a pre-removal risk assessment, you can’t appeal the decision,” Sande said, adding that a federal court must judicially review the case instead, but there’s already a lot of court delays and backlogs.

Proposed measures ‘a step backwards’

Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University, says the bill’s proposed asylum measures would be “a step backwards.”

She’s concerned about a proposed ineligibility rule affecting people who first landed in Canada after June 24, 2020. If these people make asylum claims more than one year since their arrival, their claims would not be referred to the IRB, according to a background document from the federal government.

Triandafyllidou said the one-year cutoff date is “totally arbitrary” and may be against international law.

“So by creating this one-year rule, we throw out the window all these people that might face persecution,” she said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca on Thursday.

She gave an example of someone who comes from a country where identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning is illegal. If that individual later identifies as 2SLGBTQ+ and decides to file for asylum more than a year after landing in Canada, the person’s claim wouldn’t be heard by the refugee board under the proposed rule.

Asylum claimants who enter Canada from the United States along the land border and make a claim after 14 days would not be referred to the IRB as well, according to the government’s background document.

“This new ineligibility provision will protect Canada’s asylum system against sudden increases in claims and deter people from using the asylum system to bypass regular immigration rules, including the (Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement),” according to the IRCC in an email to CTVNews.ca on Thursday.

Canada’s current asylum system already has “good rules” that just need to be stronger and implemented more effectively, Triandafyllidou added.

“There is a concern of citizens and of the government that we have a big backlog of asylum applications and that our system needs to become more efficient and effective, but this will happen by strengthening our current system which is a good one,” she said.

“So instead of undoing our system to do away with the backlog, we need to provide more resources instead of border agents, more resources for our refugee board, so that they can truly distinguish the people who really need protection from the people who are abusing the system.”

With files from The Canadian Press