When the Tamil refugees arrived this past August, Bill C-49 was put to parliament for consideration. Bill C-49 is an act to prevent human smuggling to Canada and focuses on the apprehension of human smugglers and the ceasing of further smuggling incidents. What is not being recognized, however, is the serious consequences of this proposed law.
The act focuses on amending the Criminal Code to make the trafficking of persons a criminal offence, and includes kidnapping, trafficking in persons, hostage taking, and abduction. With knowledge of brutal cases of human smuggling, this act could seem like the way to cease such a practice in Canada.
However, it is interesting to look into what the legislators meant by a “human smuggler.” Elizabeth May, Green Party leader, expressed her concerns with the bill, stating that it allows the federal government to designate who can be “irregulars” and carries the unacceptable risk of targeting those who seek and are entitled to Canada’s protection. “In addition, the Bill imposes minimum penalties […] it grants the Minister wide and arbitrary discretion to detain deemed individuals and then attempts to prevent independent and rational review.”
Bill C-49 actually proposes jailing “irregulars” for a minimum sentence of one year while their immigration status is pending, with options for plea given once every six months. How does this affect legitimate immigrants? Well for starters, with the term “human smugglers” not being completely defined by the bill, and with the implication of “irregulars,” then who is in fact going to be targeted by this bill?
Immigration is often a process that makes it almost impossible to come into Canada without certain hardships, and it could be said that many do so under precarious circumstances. More specifically, let’s consider the Tamil migrants who arrived in Vancouver this past summer. These migrants could all be labeled irregulars, and therefore, these people, whether smugglers or not, would be detained according to the bill. In reality, Canada is imprisoning these people and treating them as criminals for the mere entry into the country by precarious means. This law, judging by it’s vague definition, is really the criminalization of migrants who are fleeing instances of poverty, oppression, and instability.
The bill has been strongly opposed by many health professionals. With high incarceration rates and a denial of health benefits, the bill raises considerable health concerns. “Jailing asylum seekers and denying people access to full healthcare coverage while awaiting a decision on their claims will lead to worsening health outcomes and is a fundamental violation of people’s rights under international and Canadian law,” says Dr. Michaela Beder, a member of Health for All, a migrant justice and health organization based in Toronto. Health care, dental care, and eye care will be denied to these irregulars. Along with the lack of health care, migrants who are incarcerated would only be allowed to apply for a hearing every six months, which would then keep them imprisoned in the interim. These practices are clearly inhumane. The bill also wants to appoint an ex-CSIS director, Ward Elcock, as a special advisor on human migration. The same man was in charge of the G20 police presence in Toronto. As is well known, the amount of police brutality seen during the G20 was targeted at those who did not participate in acts of vandalism. How about putting this guy in charge of immigration? Any sort of immigration is a high-risk objective, and whether it is through refugee claim, applying for work or student visas, or illegally, one runs the risk of being put back into a precarious situation in their own country, as well as running the risk jail, assault, and work abuse for those without status, and adding the risk of being arbitrarily detained for over a year. Putting Elock in charge of an already painstaking process of immigration is not a good idea, as this could invite further abuses into the immigration process.
The reality is, with Bill C-49, Canada may well be going down a road which will increase the amount of abuse immigrants must face. Inhumane treatment toward anyone whether they be immigrants or Canadians of prior generations, is unjust and violates basic human rights. We shouldn’t be supporting a bill which brutally punishes human beings and criminalizes a person for trying to escape the hardships, poverty, violence, and political instability that are found in their country of origin.
