{"id":175016,"date":"2022-01-19T11:30:33","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T16:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irpp-policy-options.local\/issues\/the-incoherence-of-canadas-refugee-policy\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T03:25:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T07:25:16","slug":"the-incoherence-of-canadas-refugee-policy","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/potestlaunch.irpp.org\/fr\/2022\/01\/the-incoherence-of-canadas-refugee-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"The incoherence of Canada\u2019s refugee policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past year the lives of refugees and asylum seekers of the Global South have been put at risk more than ever by potential receiving countries of the Global North. Militarized migrant pushbacks at the Poland-Belarus<\/a> border. Increasing migrant deaths in the English Channel<\/a>. Draconian asylum and refugee policies being proposed by the U.K<\/a>. A United States<\/a> that continues to be refugee-averse despite a change in government. In essence, we are witnessing the \u201cwhiteness\u201d of refugee policy \u2013 a shift by countries of the Global North toward using the lives of refugees to wield greater power over the Global South, all the while retaining the false narrative of the white saviour.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s current refugee policy is nowhere as extreme as those examples, but it is not so distanced from this narrative either. The Afghan refugee crisis<\/a> in the summer of 2021 was meant to be a moment for Canada to exhibit its good policy, particularly since it played an active part in post-conflict Afghanistan and maintained a presence in the country. Instead, the Canadian response exposed the contradictions in its refugee policy, many of them a long time coming. Whiteness does not only mean discriminating against the \u201cother.\u201d It also means being completely disconnected from the situation outside the Global North. Canada\u2019s response to the Afghan crisis has provided us with several illustrations of this disconnect.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s response \u2013 gaps and discrepancies<\/strong><\/p>\n

From being one of the first northern countries to shutter<\/a> its embassy when the Taliban took over to when it end<\/a>ed its evacuation mission in the following days, Canada\u2019s disconnect from reality was clear. There were thousands of refugee and asylum cases that had been pending since at least 2014, and the decision to create new refugee programs or expanding<\/a> existing ones at the 11th hour was a bureaucratic scramble, rather than a well thought out policy response. It stranded people<\/a> in other countries, which meant Canada had to negotiate special agreements so these countries would temporarily house refugees destined for Canada. The ethics and optics were particularly weak when this involved countries like Pakistan<\/a> that had closed their borders and were hostile to Afghan refugees.<\/p>\n

A soldier\u2019s hard look back at Canada\u2019s Afghan mission<\/a><\/p>\n

Reassessing Canada\u2019s refugee policy in the COVID-19 era<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The situation of Afghan interpreters and fixers who assisted Western forces, including Canada, illustrates the biggest policy disconnect from reality. Their roles were prone to being romanticized in the media<\/a>, as they perfectly invoke the image of the Western white saviour and the oppressed Afghan working together against a common evil. However, Afghans did not necessarily help Western forces because the West came to save them. They did it primarily for economic survival, as some studies<\/a> have found, and as a way out of the country for their families in the aftermath of a brutal conflict. This does not negate their right to seek refuge. But suggesting the prospect of asylum in return for helping imperial forces during an (illegal) occupation is a flawed and incoherent premise in the context of refugee policy.<\/p>\n

In effect, Western interventionism created multiple tiers of refugees in a system that was never meant to view some as being more deserving than others. In Canada\u2019s case, this threatens the lives of Afghans who directly worked with us by encouraging them with the prospect of asylum and then failing to deliver even before it was too late \u2013 all because such cases required a force-fit within a law that recognizes them as just one of many deserving groups.<\/p>\n

Building a more sustainable refugee policy<\/a><\/p>\n

The calculated measure of success of our mission to Afghanistan<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What the Afghanistan situation most clearly illustrates is the absence of mechanisms within Canada\u2019s refugee policy to respond to complex emergencies on the ground. Canada\u2019s refugee system, like many others, looks to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees\u2019 (UNHCR) referral program<\/a>.refugees officially registered with the organization to third countries that are offering resettlement opportunities. These third countries, such as Canada, then select who to admit by applying their own criteria to the applications referred to them by the UNHCR. This is how Canada responded to the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015. In the recent Afghan case, however, the system was redundant since the urgency created by the Taliban takeover was to remove Afghans from within Afghanistan, not from refugee camps elsewhere. Not anticipating this, and also leaving existing Afghan applications stagnating within our refugee system, was perhaps Canada\u2019s worst failing in this crisis.<\/p>\n

Recommendations for better policy and practice<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Afghanistan case blindsided Canada\u2019s refugee response system, but it didn\u2019t have to. We must redesign our refugee policy to be proactive instead of reactive. For this, Canada must:<\/p>\n