In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a pact with the United States to control the flow of asylum seekers across the shared border is constitutional.
It is germane to state that the Safe Third Country Agreement, which came into effect in 2004, recognizes Canada and the U.S. as safe places for potential refugees to seek protection.
Under the agreement, refugees must seek asylum in the first of the two countries they land in. If their claim is rejected by one then they will not be successful if they try again on the other side of the border.
However, opponents of the treaty had asked the top court to declare the legislation underpinning the pact violates Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the right to life, liberty and security of the person, saying the U.S. is not actually safe for many asylum seekers.
More specifically, refugee advocates, human rights groups and the left-wing New Democratic Party have long called for the nearly two-decade old Canada-U.S. pact to be scrapped.
In 2020, the Federal Court found the law to be unconstitutional for violating their right to life, liberty and security since they are deflected back to the U.S. and wind up in detention, sometimes under solitary confinement or inhumane conditions, and can face deportation to the countries they are fleeing.
Unpleased by the ruling, the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau government, which has opted for a politically risk-averse, centrist approach to refugee policy, appealed and it made its way to Canada’s Supreme Court.
According to records, the pact sets out that claimants must file in the first “safe” country they arrive in, allowing the country to turn asylum seekers back from Canada-U.S. border checkpoints.
But contrary to this, records have it that many have gotten around it by entering Canada through unofficial crossings, where they can claim asylum once they are caught by authorities. That grew into a hot-button political issue in recent years, particularly in the province of Quebec.
Determined to properly put the pact in check and in order, Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden negotiated an update to the agreement during their bilateral meeting in March to address that.
According to reports, Christina Clark-Kazak, associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa who spoke ahead of the ruling, said an outcome like this would help Trudeau to solidify his political position on the agreement.
Christina said it could lend the government the “traction” and the credibility that it “sorely needs” after it invested “a lot of political capital” into keeping the agreement alive through legal appeals and a lengthy process of revising it with the U.S.
Harping on the development, one of the leaders of the Canadian Council for Refugees, Gauri Sreenivasan said the pact endangers the “lives of people seeking protection and tarnishes Canada’s identity as a compassionate and welcoming nation.”
But Immigration Minister Sean Fraser swiftly defended the agreement and its recent expansion. “We’re not engaged in a conversation internally about suspending the agreement we achieved with the United States through significant months and in fact years of work immediately after the Supreme Court confirms its validity.” The ruling is a win for Trudeau’s Liberal government despite the law’s severe restrictions on a person’s ability to claim refugee status in Canada.
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