Hello. My name is Jenny Jeanes and I am responsible for Action Réfugiés Montréal's detention program. Since joining Action Réfugiés Montréal in 2005, I have visited the Canada Border Services Agency holding centre in Laval, Quebec, on a weekly basis.
As our only staff person who visits the detention facility, I rely on the assistance of law student interns, who accompany me to the centre. Each week we meet newly arrived refugee claimants who, for the most part, have been detained in order to verify their identity. We try to help them understand complex immigration procedures, especially the requirements for their refugee claim.
We assist them in finding counsel. We supply phone cards to those who need to call their families and ask for their identity documents to be sent. We also identify the more vulnerable detainees, including pregnant women and families with young children, in order to provide them extra support.
Before leaving the office yesterday, I spoke to two young detainees who needed phone cards to call their families back home. These young men, one 17 years old and one 18 years old, are from Sierra Leone, a West African country that not long ago was torn apart by a decade-long civil war, and with upcoming elections, faces new unrest.
They travelled to Canada by boat and were detained upon arrival. Tomorrow they will have spent one month in detention. They have already made contact with their families, but a single phone card provides only nine minutes to call their country. They are still waiting for their documents to arrive, hoping family members will be able to help them.
One has already obtained from his family a faxed copy of the only official document he possesses, but his family has not been able to gather the funds to post the original. They know no one in Canada, so when they need help with cards, they phone our office and ask for “Auntie Jenny”.
They are just two of the hundreds of detainees we assist each year, but their situation brings to mind two of our main concerns with Bill C-31: the 12-month mandatory detention for designated irregular arrivals and the very fast processing times for refugee claims.
These two young men meet the criteria of claimants who could be designated as irregular arrivals and detained for one year without review. Although one is 17 and legally a child, he would not be exempt from mandatory detention.
Even if they were not designated as irregular arrivals, they are already halfway along the 60-day delay for a refugee hearing, as proposed by Bill C-31. They have yet to obtain identity documents, let alone meet the requirements for preparing a refugee claim. With the assistance of a lawyer, they have just begun to tell their stories. They speak limited English, relying on an interpreter to assist them. Their lawyer will have to tease out the complexities of their country's situation, distinguishing their personal fears from generalized violence and instability and examining the impact of regime change on their individual lives.
Over the years, I have met refugee claimants detained at late stages of pregnancy, and even some who have given birth while detained, returning to the detention centre with a newborn baby. I have met elderly claimants in detention and those sick with diabetes or other illnesses. I have met claimants who have been raped or tortured or who have seen family members killed and have ongoing nightmares.
I have met many young children under the age of five who accompanied their parents in detention, sometimes for over a month. One very young woman, herself an unaccompanied minor, spent almost a month in detention with her own baby until she was able to satisfy authorities as to her identity. She spoke no English or French, and was separated from her own family members in Canada, who were released before her due to their identity documents.
I have learned that refugee stories are often complicated and that it takes time for a claimant to be able to share their experiences. In our brief, I mention the case of a young gay man from Algeria who spent three months in detention until his identity was verified. He was scared and ashamed of disclosing his sexual orientation and was uncomfortable around other detainees during his three months in the centre. He was so psychologically fragile that he was unable to testify at his eventual refugee hearing, even after several months in Canada. Only with the help of a therapist was he finally able to clearly explain his need for protection, and he was accepted as a refugee. I would just like to add that this therapy was not available while he was in the centre.
I'd also like to tell you about a woman from Nigeria who we first met in detention in 2008. She has since been accepted as a refugee and is now a permanent resident in Canada, but it was a difficult road to where she is now. She arrived in Canada eight months pregnant and spent most of the last of her pregnancy locked up in the holding centre, where rules dictate when and what to eat, when to sleep, and whether one can go outside for some air. It took her 40 days to obtain identity documents and be released, and she gave birth less than two weeks after leaving detention.
Being in detention is a difficult experience for most of the claimants we meet. We hear repeatedly about the shame of being handcuffed and under constant surveillance; the fear of deportation exacerbated by the regular removals of other detainees; and chronic physical discomfort, such as constipation and fatigue. We regularly meet detainees who speak no English or French, and are extremely isolated by language barriers. Claimants express distress at having to prepare written documents to start their claims while detained, where they have no privacy, there are obstacles to communicating with their families, and there is little contact with their legal counsel. As mentioned in our brief, there is no privacy for phone calls, and even when lawyers can visit the centre there's limited time and space for consultation.
We have a unique perspective, being able to meet individual detainees week after week and hear their experiences. Detained refugee claimants tell us of the significant challenges they face during days, weeks, or months of detention. It is hard to imagine 12 months of mandatory detention. Having seen how many obstacles refugee claimants face when detained at the beginning of the refugee process, we worry that the short delay of only 60 days or less will result in refusals for people genuinely in need of protection. Many of these individuals would not even have access to appeal under Bill C-31 provisions, eliminating the chance of having errors corrected.
Thank you.