RESOLUTION

TITLE:Detention of Refugee Claimants

ORIGINAL SOURCE:Church in Society Committee

CONFERENCE ACTION:

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:postage

SOURCE OF FUNDS:Conference budget

STAFFING IMPLICATIONS:letter writing

VOLUNTEER IMPLICATIONS:research, letter writing, advocacy

MOTION BY Susan Ferguson/Paget Blaza that this 78th annual meeting of Toronto Conference of The United Church of Canada call on the government of Canada:
•To conduct a rigorous review of circumstances under which detention of refugee claimants is applied, in order to bring uses of detention into accord with the provisions of international conventions to which Canada is a signatory;
•To end immediately the detention of minor refugee claimants and to put in place measures for the proper treatment of minors and families;
•To end  immediately the practice of video conferencing for detention hearings;
•To make available comprehensive statistics on detention of refugee claimants on a regular basis to relevant organizations and the media.

RATIONALE AND FAITH BASE
When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.  (Leviticus 9: 33-34)

We are also called to reach out particularly to the most vulnerable in society and proclaim release to captives.  More particularly, we are called to welcome and assist those who come to Canada seeking our protection and to speak out against their imprisonment on totally insufficient grounds.

Because the procedures for processing refugee claims and doing security checks are cumbersome, underfunded, understaffed and often improperly conducted, detention is being implemented as a stopgap measure. Detention is increasingly being applied in a capricious manner to people from specific ethnic groups.  In such cases, it is a prejudicial response to concerns about the possible entry into Canada of terrorists, as well as use of Canada as a transit point into the United States by terrorists.

Depriving persons of their freedom without just cause is contrary to Canadian and international human rights principles. Yet persons seeking the protection of Canada are detained without any prima facie evidence and increasingly held in correctional facilities, while Canadian citizens charged with serious crimes against persons for which there is prima facie evidence of guilt are not held.

Efforts to get adequate information about what claimants are being held, why they are held and under what conditions meet with continued resistance from authorities.