Patrick is 10 and Angel is 14. They were removed from Canada by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration with their father, Mr. Jean Bosco Rwiyamirira, on October 3, 2006. After living eight years — most of their lives — in Canada, these children, like many young Canadians who were born elsewhere, embraced Canada as their country.
Mr. Rwiyamirira worked in the secretariat of the Rwandan embassy in Ottawa. Making an astonishing break from diplomatic protocol, he denounced the violation of human rights during the Rwandan genocide. This action put his family at risk, and so Mr. Rwiyamirira — as any father would — put their security first: he claimed asylum as a refugee in Canada.
Mr. Rwiyamirira wasted no time in making an exemplary contribution to Quebec society. In 2005, Premier Jean Charest awarded him an honour in recognition of his contribution to the common good.
Canada, as you know, has a moratorium on deportation to Rwanda — for good reason. Nevertheless, one official in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration — not a judge, not a court of law — had the authority to order this family's removal without any possibility of appeal. And the Department did this in violation of Canada's obligations under article 3 of the International Convention Against Torture. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Mr. Rwiyamirira and his family, along with many similar cases, suggests that in practice, Canada does not always respect its international treaty obligations.
Today, my diocese has lost direct contact with Mr. Rwiyamirira. We know he is in prison in Kigali on a charge of desertion. This is an alarming state of affairs, because it shows the consequences of Canada's violation of the strict obligation not to practice refoulement in international law. We have intermittent communication with his children: they are in the care of distant relatives, and have left behind every semblance of their lives in Canada.
Your committee, Mr. Chairman, may not be the place to review specific outrages like this. We recognize that you are not the de facto appeals court provided by Parliament in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. However, the situation faced by this family is a powerful illustration of the core message in our pastoral letter “We are aliens and transients before the Lord our God”.
The core message is this: human dignity is neither theoretical nor abstract. When it is wounded, you know it. The wound can last for the rest of your life. This is especially so in the case of a family.
We recognize the positive elements of the Canadian refugee system. However, serious reform is essential so that human dignity can take precedence over all other considerations. We do not make this assertion out of episcopal idealism. Every day, in the pastoral life of our dioceses across Canada, we witness the struggle of people seeking asylum in Canada, and especially the injustices that persist in view of the government's failure to implement a transparent and effective appeal system, as required by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
We witness the ordeal caused by inordinate delays and fees which prevent family reunification. We witness the very real suffering of people whose status is under a moratorium, and specifically the youth who see their lives destroyed by delays that can last many years. We witness the impoverishment of agricultural workers, immigrants and refugees who, due to the lack of adequate support services and the persistent failure to recognize foreign accreditation, suffer higher rates of unemployment and lower earnings.
We witness the very real vulnerability of women in what the Vatican describes as the “feminization of migration” and the absence of resources to shield them from economic exploitation and men's violence against them.
We witness the abomination of human trafficking as women and children are reduced to sex slaves.
We congratulate the minister for announcing in May that Immigration officers will now have the power to issue temporary residence permits for up to 120 days to the victims of human trafficking, for exempting them from processing fees, and allowing access to benefits under the interim Federal Health Program.
At the same time, if the CBC is correct, they continue to face serious barriers to immigration. There still does not seem to be an integrated, proactive strategy to eradicate human trafficking from Canada.
We witness the vivisection of human dignity in slow motion, and it is clear in the work of this committee that you have witnessed this also—in the testimony you have received, and in your visits to detention centres. You have seen how measures that are intended to keep Canadians secure against terrorism in fact flout deep democratic values like respect for human rights, the rule of law, and the intrinsic worth of each person.
The courts have seen this, the Arar Commission has seen this, and you have seen this too. However, Canadians often fail to see that human dignity also requires that no woman, man or child be forced to migrate or seek asylum.
It is therefore vital that the Government of Canada redoubles its efforts to counter the environmental destruction, famine and disease that come with global warming by taking meaningful action to implement Kyoto further to the report of Sir Nicolas Stern; to stop the trampling of human rights and civic freedoms under the heels of despots by building international support for the just application of the responsibility to protect; and to reverse the engineered impoverishment of vast populations by delivering on the promise of integral human development.
The message to take up in your report to the House of Commons and in your discussions in your respective caucuses is that: it is within our power as a country to solve these problems. It is within our power as a country to build a refugee and immigrant system in Canada that places human dignity, first. Such a system would treat the two children of my diocese—Patrick and Angel—with the care and attention they deserve as children with an eternal destiny, and never dehumanize them as administrative burdens. It is within our power as a country to answer a global culture of fear of strangers, a culture of suspicion and deeply rooted terror, and to replace it with a culture of peace, a culture of unequivocal and authentic hospitality.
Thank you.