Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 15th, 2017

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Are there any specific challenges you hear about from the community when they cross the borders?

[Kimahli Powell]

It all depends on the different countries.

If you're talking about Canada specifically, one area of concern for individuals here, particularly for those who have not filed a case, is the length of time. I'm sure you've heard about the issues surrounding legacy claims, as far as individuals who have waited to actually get a hearing.

There is also the issue of access to support. In the Netherlands, for example, when you arrive, you have immediate access to support. In Ontario, if you file a claim, you have to wait up to six weeks to get Ontario Works.

There are some issues as far as access to services when those individuals arrive, and the quality of those services as well.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My next question is for Janet.

It is vital for employees who come into direct contact with LGBTQ+ refugees to take into account their concerns and experiences.

In your opinion, do these officers require any specific training so that they are sensitive to the unique situations of the couples who need protection?

[Janet Altshool]

Let me preface this by saying that the organization I'm in does not deal directly with refugees but rather with Canadians in cross-border relationships, so this is not my area of expertise.

I think the Canadian government's laws protecting LGBT men and women are pretty good. I don't think there's any special training other than sensitivity to the fact that people often suffer from post-traumatic stress.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have thirty seconds.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I have a quick question for Michael.

Individuals who are part of the LGBT community can face stigma from different social groups. This may lead these individuals to fear reaching out for help within their families and communities. Are there any suggestions you have to improve how the outreach should be done with those individuals?

[Michael Tutthill]

One of the things that I mentioned was the IRB guidelines that came out. As an organization, we're using those guidelines as a training framework to work with other settlement agencies, and as guidelines for the overall education work that we're doing out in the community.

I think those are a really great place to start for settlement agencies, but also for workers within the Canadian government who are working in visa offices or bringing folks in through whatever means are available to the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

I would like to thank the panel for their testimony today before the committee. I know I speak on behalf of all committee members when I express our heartfelt thanks for all of the tremendous work that you do.

We'll suspend for two minutes to allow the next panel to assemble.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

The meeting is resumed.

For the second panel, we have before us Mr. Maurice Tomlinson from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

Mr. Arsham Parsi will be here by teleconference.

From Egale Canada, we were supposed to have Helen Kennedy, but I understand that she fell ill, and has provided a written brief this morning, which we will circulate once it's translated.

Mr. Tomlinson, you have seven minutes, please.

[Maurice Tomlinson, Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network]

Thank you.

I am Maurice Tomlinson, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and I've helped to network with our Caribbean LGBT advocacy.

In August 2011, I married my husband in Canada, then returned to Jamaica to await the usual filing process to emigrate here. In 2012, a Jamaican newspaper published a front-page unauthorized photo of my wedding, and I immediately started receiving death threats. My husband, who at the time was a Toronto police service officer, contacted Interpol, and I was advised that my address and whereabouts were known, and I should go into hiding. I fled Jamaica soon thereafter, but I decided not to seek refugee status, because as a refugee I would not have been able to go back to Jamaica to visit my mother, and she is very ill. Most refugees are not as privileged as I am, and Jamaicans account for the overwhelming number of LGBTQI refugees in Canada from the Caribbean.

Jamaica is one of 73 countries that criminalize same-sex intimacy, 10 of which have the death penalty. The anti-sodomy laws across the Caribbean are varied, and range from 10 years to life imprisonment, and most of these laws were imposed during British colonization, but have become domesticated. For example, the Jamaican law was made worse in 2012, requiring those convicted under the statute to register as sex offenders, and always carry a pass or face a fine of up to $11,000 plus 12 months' imprisonment for each offence of not having a pass.

These anti-gay laws serve as licence for abuse and attacks against LGBTQ people. For example, in May 2016, a gay couple was sleeping in their home near Montego Bay, Jamaica, when a group of men shot up the house, killing them. In 2004, Brad Williamson, a Canadian who moved to Jamaica to work for gay rights, was stabbed 74 times in his home by men who objected to his homosexuality. LGBTQ people are considered disposable, unapprehended criminals.

For many years, religious fundamentalists in the global north have also exported homophobia to the global south. Canadian Dr. Janet Epp Buckingham of Trinity Western University cautioned the Jamaican Parliament in 2007 not to enact a Canadian-style charter of rights, because it could lead to the horrors of marriage equality. Regional clerics have adopted this popular anti-gay message with dangerous effect.

In 2016, an evangelical bishop in Antigua opposed the government minister's suggestion to decriminalize sodomy. Having just returned from a conference in Alberta, he claimed the Fort McMurray fire was caused by gay rights in Canada, a fate that would befall Antigua if it, too, embraced gay rights. The minister dropped the suggested repeal.

At the same time, Jamaican music has been heavily influenced by religion, and our musicians have imbibed the anti-gay rhetoric they have heard from the pulpit. We have the most anti-gay songs per capita that call for the rape of lesbians, the burning of gays, etc. These songs are played everywhere and every day, and reinforced with weekly anti-gay preaching, they create the perfect storm of hate.

Capitalizing on this hate, Caribbean politicians have used anti-gay rhetoric to secure votes. For instance a minister in the Bahamas last year proposed exiling transgender people to a small island. The Prime Minister of Jamaica and government ministers have successfully campaigned on family values platforms.

Consequently, fear of violence, stigma, and discriminatory laws have driven LGBTQI people in the Caribbean away from effective HIV interventions. As a result, the region has the second highest HIV rate after Sub-Saharan Africa, with Jamaican men who have sex with men having the highest HIV rate in the western hemisphere, if not the world.

Because Canada's laws governing medical inadmissibility reject temporary and permanent resident applicants on the basis of their HIV status, many of these men are forced to apply for refugee status. In light of the horrible abuses that LGBTQI people in the Caribbean face, the legal network and our partners are working hard to defend their human rights. We have conducted LGBTQI sensitivity training in six Caribbean countries, most recently in Barbados where the Canadian High Commissioner gave the keynote graduation speech.

With the support of Jamaican religious leaders and the group Anglicans for Decriminalization, the legal network will be hosting a conference in Jamaica on October 12 to discuss the role of the church in decriminalization across the Commonwealth. The Anglican Church of Canada will be sending a representative. Jamaican LGBTQI people are also trying to influence the culture through visibility campaigns such as Pride. Pride Jamaica in 2015 saw the former mayor of Kingston give the keynote address, and in 2016 the Canadian High Commission held a flag-raising ceremony for Pride. The legal network is also engaging with diaspora groups such as the Jamaican Canadian Association to leverage their impact in supporting gay liberation efforts.

With the legal network's support I have also mounted two lawsuits in Jamaica, in one case challenging Jamaica's anti-sodomy law, and in the other challenging TV stations that refused to air an ad that called for the rights of LGBTQI people. These cases are winding their way through the courts. In 2013, I also filed a case challenging the immigration laws of Belize and Trinidad that bar the entry of homosexuals. The Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that as a CARICOM national, I am secure and I can enter, but that leaves Canadians vulnerable to being deported based on their sexual orientation. In addition, two petitions have been filed against the Jamaican anti-sodomy law before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR, and are still at the admissibility stage. We have also tried to engage our local politicians and have been most successful in meeting them in international spaces, such as the Organization of American States, especially when other governments act as hosts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 20 seconds, please.

[Maurice Tomlinson]

Our experience has taught us that there are very tangible, concrete measures the Canadian government can adopt to support LGBTQI people in the Caribbean. These include reaching out to LGBTQI activists and human rights defenders in countries where such rights are violated and working to amplify their voices, enhancing funding to support organizations here at home that work with LGBTQI people, supporting refugees and facilitating asylum in Canada for LGBTQI people fleeing persecution, and repealing the excessive-demand provision of our immigration laws governing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

[Maurice Tomlinson]

—medical inadmissibility, which prevents people living with HIV from coming to Canada as permanent or temporary residents.

My talk is in the package, which you were all presented with.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Tomlinson.

Mr. Parsi, the floors is yours for seven minutes.

[Arsham Parsi, Executive Director, Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees]

Thank you so much.

I wanted to be there in person, but, unfortunately, due to an Air Canada flight cancellation, I wasn't able to participate. Thank you so much for facilitating a way for me to join you over the telephone.

My name is Arsham Parsi and I'm the executive director of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, a registered charity that is helping LGBT refugees from Iran, Syria, Iraq, and most Middle Eastern countries through the UNHCR process in order to be granted asylum and then resettle in a safe country such as Canada, the United States, Australia, or several European countries.

There is no doubt that Iran persecutes LGBTs on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. That is well documented. In other Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, there is very serious punishment for being homosexual. For many years the Canadian government supported those refugees and helped them to come to safe countries. The majority of those refugees cannot be granted a visa or a student visa or some other method of immigration in order to apply and come to Canada or other free countries to live free from fear.

When something happens and it's a matter of life and death, they decide to leave and apply for asylum. Turkey is a transit country and a hard country for them, because most of them do not require a visa or even if they don't have legal documents, they can escape through mountains or enter Turkey illegally and apply at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' offices.

In 2001 Canada was very helpful and most LGBT refugees in Turkey wanted to come to Canada because they would have more rights here and they could enjoy more rights like gay marriage, health care, tolerance, culture, and the pride that is happening here; they were more comfortable than in the United States. Unfortunately, it's changed. For a couple of years, two years maximum, Canada has refused a lot of non-Syrian LGBT refugees. We as Canadians are proud that Canada opened its arms to Syrians and those families who have been affected by the horrible war in Syria, but saving someone's life doesn't mean holding up another's life. As a result, a lot of LGBT refugees in Turkey were put on hold. Their applications were not processed because the priority was Syria, and there were a lot of logistics and capacity issues with Turkey, such as the number of available interview rooms at the Canadian embassy in Ankara, staffing, and all of the people who can handle and process the refugee applications.

It used to be that Canada's quota was 1,100 cases a year, and sometimes it took up to 12 months to process those. When the cases of the Syrian refugees were put on top of those, they were delayed more and more. We have some cases of people who were interviewed in 2014 and they are still waiting.

In Turkey, the refugees are not safe. Turkey is not a safe country, and due to the political changes in Turkey that we are all aware of, they're not even as safe as before.

One piece of evidence that this situation is very dire, and that we as Canadians and protectors of human rights have the responsibility to support them because they are the most vulnerable cases, is that in the last two years 21 LGBT refugees have attempted suicide in Turkey and five of them have been successful. So we have lost at least five of them in the last two years. The main reason was that they could not wait there any longer. They didn't have family support. Usually, they were abandoned by their families and they didn't have any support. They could not work in Turkey because they didn't have a work permit and they were victims of homophobia even in Turkey and were being discriminated against by other groups of refugees like other Iranian refugees or other Syrian refugees.

A lot of gay Syrian refugees are being raped at the camp. The UNHCR knows that the LGBT refugees are a priority and they have to be taken care of as soon as possible, but, as you know, resettlement is a voluntary action and the UNHCR cannot force any government to receive and accept and process these refugees.

The Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees would sincerely like to ask all members of Parliament and decision-makers to take.... We submitted a report of more than 45 pages about the state of refugees in Turkey and other countries and why they need special protection. I'm aware that it is being translated into French. You will be provided a copy when that's finished.

It's very important to pay attention to see how Canada can help these vulnerable cases, because they are in need of support. They are being abandoned by their families. They are at risk of execution and punishment due to their sexual orientation, and if we don't help them right now, there might be more victims. They might decide to end their lives in Turkey because no one will help them. It is very important. I ask you sincerely to consider all the options.

On what happened in 2011, I consider that project a successful one, because it was speeding up: the UNHCR was speeding up and the Canadian embassy knew how they had to deal with it. The only problem I can raise was the staffing, because the embassy in Tehran was closed and the embassy in Syria was closed. All of the pressure was in Turkey, on the embassy in Ankara, and they had limited numbers of interview rooms, staff, translators, and interpreters. I think that's another way of looking at it: to see how Canada can build its capacity in Ankara in order to address the huge backlog that we are experiencing right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Ehsassi, please, for seven minutes.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will start with Mr. Parsi.

It's great to hear from you.

I have had many opportunities to talk to you, of course, about the issue that you have truly become a leader in. You obviously have been to Turkey on numerous occasions. During your testimony, you were describing to us how dire the situation is on the ground in Turkey. I was wondering if you could kindly elaborate on that.

[Arsham Parsi]

Which part of the story do you want to hear more about? The personal, the legal aspect, the emotional state...? Which one is more important for you, Mr. Ehsassi?

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

It's the personal aspect, and also the hardships that prospective refugees are facing in Turkey.

[Arsham Parsi]

As I mentioned, the majority of the LGBTQ refugees don't have their families' support, because they're not out to their families. That is one of the challenges that they mentioned to me numerous times. I was a refugee myself when I came to Canada on May 10, 2006, as a government-sponsored refugee—I was in Turkey myself—and it is true, as they said, that in Iran they have to deny their sexual orientation in order to survive, and in Turkey suddenly they have to prove their sexual orientation in order to be safe. It's a big paradox, and it's very difficult. Emotionally, it puts them in a very awkward situation.

First, because of the Turkish media propaganda, they believe that Turkey is very safe because of all the temples and bars and everything that they can see on TV. When they arrive in Turkey, they think they are safe, so sometimes they may mention that they are gay, or maybe when they want to rent shelter, a place, or anything, they don't deny their sexual orientation. They want to be comfortable, like how we live here, but it makes them more vulnerable, because Turkey is not a welcoming country. The people, especially in those cities where the LGBTQ refugees are residing, such as Denizli, Eskishehr, and Yalova, are very conservative.

According to the Turkish Ministry of the Interior, the refugees cannot live in metropolitan cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, or Izmir. They have to go to smaller cities in order to be monitored, and it puts them at risk. Emotionally, they cannot do anything. Their families don't support them because usually they don't want them to leave. They keep asking them why they left Iran, and they have no valid response. They just have to keep lying. As a result, they don't get anything. They don't get any support.

Also, they cannot work, because as refugees in Turkey they are not allowed to work, so they don't have money. They have to survive somehow. As a result, they need to have a cash job, and they then again become a victim of abuse, this time by the employers. When the employers know that they don't have rights, they don't have protections, and they cannot make any complaints, they abuse them. We have had several reports from people. Also, the pay for these jobs is very low. Sometimes they have to work for 13 hours and are paid 10 Turkish lira, which is like $5 Canadian. It's not even slavery....

All of these difficulties make them sick. Whenever I've talked to some politicians and also to friends, I tell them that when they arrive in Canada, sooner or later they will be sick, even after a year or three years. They become ill. Imagine it and put yourself in their shoes. Imagine that you have to live in a country where you don't speak the language and you don't know anything about the culture. You cannot go back to your country. You just have to wait for three years. This waiting time makes you emotionally sick and vulnerable.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you for that.

I have a follow-up question. I know that your organization has been very active in Canada. Could you explain to us whether your organization also attempts to increase the number of private sponsorships for refugees that you are dealing with? How do you think that could possibly be improved?

[Arsham Parsi]

When the Honourable Jason Kenney was at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, we worked closely with CIC, and there were a lot of groups of five sponsors and private sponsorships. Groups approached us. We made a recommendation and put them in contact with refugees, and they applied to the CIC.

We had one pilot of government-sponsored refugees. Another one was privately sponsored. The third one was blended cases, which I'm sure you all have read was a partnership between the government and private sponsors. That was really helpful. We still have some cases that were resettled through private sponsorship and groups of five in Winnipeg and Halifax, but they went mostly to the GTA area. They are happy. They're successful.

I usually follow up and visit after a year or two. Most of those people are studying at the universities. Some of them received their degrees and are working, so it helped them.

Those private sponsorships were very helpful, because not only did they help them to come to Canada, the refugees also received financial allowances as well as emotional support, which is very important.

When they come to Canada, they have to have a group of people to support them. As I mentioned, they are emotionally in need of attention, and they need to be taken care of. Those private sponsors might help with these supports. We don't want to hear bad incidents again, and I'm sorry to have to keep giving bad news.

Last week one of our refugees who was resettled in Vancouver, a year ago exactly, on May 10, 2016, committed suicide because he didn't have anyone. He left a note that said, “I wish I had someone to talk to me for an hour.” This is very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Parsi.

There are 20 seconds left, and Mr. Ehsassi has kindly allowed me to take that time.

Mr. Tomlinson, I recently heard some Jamaican music—Jamaica exports a lot of music to the world—that was not only horrifically homophobic; it was also misogynistic and propagated violence, quite specifically against gays.

We have hate crimes legislation, but there's also the whole concept of protecting the arts. Could you, succinctly please, tell us the consequences of this sort of music in Jamaica? What are the real consequences of that sort of music?

[Maurice Tomlinson]

As I explained, Jamaica is not a quiet society, so this music is played on buses and cars everywhere, Monday to Friday, and this is the reverberation that people hear. Then, they go to church, because everybody has to go to church in Jamaica—it's not an option—and the rhetoric is invariably anti-gay.

Literally, we are creating a culture that's saturated or marinated in homophobia. That's why we have the highest number of anti-gay attacks per capita, even though our laws are the least offensive, technically, in the Caribbean.