In what can be described as a momentum gathering development, the government of Nova Scotia has announced that the province is joining British Columbia in refusing to detain federal migrants in their facility and has given Ottawa 12 months’ notice to cancel its immigration detention agreement with the Canada Border Services Agency.
It could be recalled that last year, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International launched the joint campaign to lobby provinces and territories to end the practice of holding immigration detainees alongside dangerous criminals in jails.
In the recent announcement, the Nova Scotia Department of Justice clearly stated that the province will no longer hold individuals who are detained solely for violating the immigration law when the contract ends on Aug. 8, 2023.
Harping on the development, Julie Chamagne, executive director of the Halifax Refugee Clinic, said “Across the Atlantic provinces and throughout the country, migrants and refugee claimants too frequently face abusive, open-ended immigration detention — especially traumatic for those fleeing war or persecution in search of a safe haven”
“Nova Scotia’s decision is an important step forward for human rights. We call on the federal government to enact robust legislative and regulatory changes to stop rights violations in this system across the country.”
Records have it that in 2019-20, before the pandemic, more than 8,800 migrants were detained in Canada — 19 per cent in a provincial facility. It was reported that in 2020-21, the number dropped to 1,605, with 40 per cent held in a provincial jail, as public health concerns amid the pandemic prompted the release of detainees who posed little risk to the public.
It is imperative to note that B.C. had the second most immigration detainees of all provinces: 1,470 in 2019 and 310 in 2020. Nova Scotia only held 14 inmates for the border agency in each of those two years.
Speaking further, Chamagne said “One is too many. There is no legal limit on immigration detention. So you don’t know how long you’re going to be held. And that really is contrary to our values as Canadians. I really hope it will have a domino effect.”
In a statement, Sheila Wildeman, co-chair of East Coast Prison Justice Society and a Dalhousie University law professor said “As a result of Nova Scotia’s decision, immigration detainees will soon be spared the corrosive, human rights-impairing conditions of the province’s jails, where solitary confinement, mass lockdowns and other forms of routine institutional violence have only intensified since the start of the pandemic”
“We call on the federal government to use the resources devoted to maintaining this brutal practice to instead invest in sustainable immigration settlement supports in the community.”
The nation’s immigration detention system came under fire a few years ago after several detainees died in custody. Advocates are particularly concerned about the use of provincial prisons to hold migrants with convicts — often over months and in some cases, years — on administrative grounds, pending removals from Canada.
Records have it that cross the country, more than 70 correctional facilities are used to hold federal immigration detainees who are deemed a flight risk or a safety threat to the public or to themselves.
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