Jan 2005
Church leaders were scheduled to meet anew with embattled Immigration
Minister Judy Sgro on Dec. 10 to clarify their position on a “confidential
offer” for refugees that she made during their first dialogue last Sept. 29,
and to push for the implementation of a merit-based appeal process.
The secret proposal, which Anglican officials
said involved a “special channel” whereby the cases of 12 refugees could be
submitted directly by churches to Ms. Sgro (who promised to act on the cases
within 10 days) has divided church leaders and angered non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) advocating for refugee rights. Some members of Parliament
called the offer illegal and questioned why churches were being given
preferential treatment.
There has been confusion among church leaders
over what the minister offered. But Ms. Sgro’s office is similarly befuddled
over whether or not churches have accepted the deal.
Some churches, including the Anglican Church of
Canada, submitted cases of refugees currently in sanctuary to Ms. Sgro’s
office: Amir Kazemian from Iran (who is in sanctuary at St. Michael’s Anglican
Church, Vancouver), Alvaro Vega and family from Colombia (St. Andrew’s Norwood
United Church, Montreal), Menen Ayele and her three children (Union United
Church, Montreal), and Samsu Mia from Bangladesh (First Unitarian Church,
Ottawa). These cases have not been acted upon within the promised 10-day period
and are still on file.
Some churches have, however, rejected the offer.
“The churches would not want to be seen as being given any special
privilege,” Rev. Richard Fee, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada
said, emerging from a House of Commons immigration committee meeting last Nov.
2. “The big emphasis is the appeal process and we’re still standing behind
that.”
The offer was “totally unacceptable” since it
would have “set up the churches as the only appeal available,” said Heather
Macdonald, of the United Church of Canada’s refugees and migration unit.
Ms. Macdonald explained that the United and
Unitarian churches later agreed to submit some files of refugees currently in
sanctuary at their churches after they reached “a more acceptable
understanding” during a subsequent meeting with Minister Sgro. The new offer
is one “that addressed our principled objections and could be made available
to others in the community – it went beyond the churches.”
Only representatives from the United and
Unitarian churches were present at the meeting but “the offer was extended to
other faith and humanitarian groups,” said Ms. Macdonald.
An Anglican Church of Canada representative said
there was confusion about what precisely was offered at the initial meeting with
the minister. Archdeacon Paul Feheley, the primate’s principal secretary,
said, “At the meeting she (Ms. Sgro) talked about a number of 12 cases.
Someone took that to mean that’s not a hard and fast, fixed number. Others
took it to be an absolutely fixed number.”
However, Ms. Sgro, who has been criticized in
recent months for her department’s role in granting permits to foreign
strippers, told Parliament she only offered “a low number of cases.”
Andrew Ignatieff, director of the Primate’s
World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF), the Canadian Anglican church’s
relief and development arm, said some church leaders submitted names as
“gesture of good faith.”
“It was an acknowledgment that her offer was
made in good faith and therefore, the churches wished to accept that gesture by
responding in good faith,” said Mr. Ignatieff. “It did not diminish the
importance of the issue of appeal and it did not neglect that there are other,
many, many cases that are left pending.”
Canadian church leaders, including Archbishop
Hutchison, have recently defended what they called the church’s time-honoured
and theologically-based tradition of providing sanctuary to refugees facing
deportation. They said the only way to deter sanctuary would be for the federal
government to address its “flawed” immigration system and set up a promised
appeals process.