May 16, 2025
The Right Honourable Mark Carney P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2
RE: Leadership on Refugees and Immigration: Five Priority Areas for Action
Dear Prime Minister,
Congratulations on your election and clear mandate from the peoples of Canada to build a strong, resilient and inclusive future for us all.
The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) is a leading voice for the rights, protection, sponsorship, settlement, and well-being of refugees and migrants, in Canada and globally. CCR is driven by over 200 member organizations working with, from, and for these communities from coast to coast to coast.
We look forward to collaborating with you and the new Cabinet to support the commitments in your platform – to build diverse communities based on values of fairness, solidarity, resilience and sustainability; to champion human rights and the rule of law; and to maintain Canada’s global leadership in prioritizing the world’s most vulnerable, including refugees.
This election prompted us to reflect about who we are and want to be as a sovereign, diverse and compassionate nation. As you aptly noted, in Canada we look out for one another. Our approach to welcoming refugees and newcomers stands in contrast to troubling global trends of isolationism and xenophobia, including what we are witnessing so starkly in the United States. Canada must continue to lead, by example and with intention.
CCR members are working on the front lines of immigration, asylum and resettlement. Many of us came here as refugees and immigrants. We stand ready to bring our knowledge, experience, and lived expertise to help Canada lead. We are requesting a meeting with you to discuss how we can help in five key areas. We urge these be included as priorities in your cabinet’s mandate letters.
1. Reclaiming the Narrative of Canada as a Welcoming Nation
Public opinion polling consistently shows that Canadians view immigration positively, reflecting a broad consensus that Canada is strengthened by immigration, respect for human rights and being open to the world.
Yet in the year leading to the 2025 election, we saw this precious consensus come under attack with false narratives that pitted Canadians against future Canadians, blaming newcomers for long standing policy failures not of their making. Refugees and asylum seekers were particularly targeted despite comprising less than 2% of total annual immigration numbers.
It’s time to turn the storyline around with a unifying vision. Our members witness daily how in our communities people show up for other people, welcoming newcomers as neighbours, colleagues and friends. At a time when our sovereignty is under threat, when Canadians are rallying to stand behind what makes us distinct and binds us together as a nation, we need to defend our core values as a welcoming country.
To build the strong united and supportive communities pledged in the platform, we need an intentional shift, from all levels of government and all parts of society, in how we talk about immigration. Now is the time to build a positive vision that ignites our best qualities, combats the negative rhetoric that keeps many of us feeling unsafe and unwelcome, and builds the basis for a more inclusive and prosperous future for us all.
For our part, we are working with a broad coalition of organizations to launch a national campaign and ensure the public consensus for immigration is maintained and strengthened. We are keen to engage with you on its relevance for parliamentarians.
2. Reasserting Canada’s Global leadership on Refugees
We enthusiastically welcome your commitment that at a time of rising global conflict and authoritarianism, Canada will lead where many are stepping back. The US retreat to isolationism – ending refugee resettlement, suspending the asylum system and other protection programs, slashing USAID, and withdrawing from UN institutions– is causing shockwaves of harm for millions around the world. Your government’s commitment to scale up international assistance funding and programs for LGBTQIA+ refugees is commendable. Other vulnerable refugee populations also need attention.
It is essential that Canada’s response to global crises be guided by an unwavering commitment to advance equity and anti-racism. We must learn from the widely critiqued immigration initiatives for Sudan and Gaza that have cost so many lives and let down so many in our communities who still hold out hope for a Canadian response we can all be proud of. Together we can build programs that tackle the systemic barriers and biases created by anti-Black and anti-Palestinian racism. An action plan to end the chronic delays faced by refugees being processed from Africa must be launched. There are simple steps like transparency of data by region that would help.
Canada’s immigration levels matter–to people at home and abroad. The economic, family and refugee pillars of immigration need better balance. Processing times for refugees are consistently among the longest of all categories. We urge you to ensure Canadian values and leadership are reflected by committing that a minimum of 15% of annual admissions are dedicated for humanitarian resettlement, including at least 20,000 Government Assisted Refugees, given the skills, capacity and generosity of our people. Where you lead, Canadians will respond, as we have repeatedly, from the arrival of Vietnamese refugees decades ago to more recent crises in Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine.
Crucially, the government must end the agonizing wait times endured by refugees who have found protection in Canada but remain separated from their families abroad. Children should be reunited with their parents within 6 months.
3. Ensuring the Right to Asylum with Dignity
The right to seek asylum from persecution is a right protected under the Canadian Charter and international law. Yet people in Canada are increasingly being told that refugee claimants are causing a “crisis”— a situation Canada is unable to handle. This is simply not the case. Our country, a global leader in welcoming refugees, has the infrastructure, the know-how and the resources to respond to those seeking protection at and within our borders in an effective and orderly way that treats people with dignity.
Your platform commits to move Canada forward with a credible and fair immigration system with strengthened integrity. We have proposed a plan for ensuring Asylum with Dignity in which reception centres and proven models of community-based shelter infrastructure can be scaled up and existing settlement and legal services can be made available to refugee claimants–at a fraction of the costs of what is currently spent on emergency measures. The $1.1 billion allocated in Budget 2024 for refugee claimants housing can be a powerful catalyst for this change if it reaches provinces and frontline actors effectively. The initial stage of the claims process also needs to be streamlined and the backlog eliminated.
Canada’s globally-respected Immigration and Refugee Board is an essential part of the solution. It deserves our full support and enhanced funding to respond to the rising numbers of those waiting for their case to be heard. Your platform's commitment to expand legal aid support is vital to realize this goal.
This is an historic moment of transformation in our relations with the US and this is no less true for matters of migration. We are witnessing in the US a suspension of the rule of law, the abandonment of the principle of non-refoulement, the dismantling of the asylum system, and severe encroachments on civil rights.
Given the evidence, it is impossible to maintain with integrity that refugees turned back at our border will be safe in the US. The Safe Third Country Agreement must be abandoned. It is both ineffective and violates people’s rights, leading families to risk more dangerous journeys and incentivizing organized crime.
We urge you to reject a costly, militarized, US-style approach to border enforcement that dehumanizes those who seek our protection. Collectively we have proven solutions to respond to those fleeing dangers – solutions that can save lives at a fraction of current costs. In a world of closing minds and closing borders, Canada can lead the way.
4. Upholding Rights for Temporary Residents and Migrant Workers
Historically, one of the major strengths of Canada’s immigration system has been our tradition of welcoming people as permanent residents. CCR is concerned, however, about shifts in policy leading to increasing numbers of people living here for long periods of time but with only temporary status. Workers recruited through the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, for example, are now central to the operations of major areas of the Canadian economy from agriculture and fish processing to retail, health and long-term care sectors.
Despite these major contributions to Canada, people with temporary status are put in a very vulnerable position. They are denied access to the legal protections and services available to those with permanent status, despite paying into these services. The threat of having to leave Canada if their visa is not renewed hangs over their head. From migrant workers to international students, the evidence is clear: precarity and isolation leaves those with temporary status subject to exploitation and abuse from employers, traffickers and unscrupulous recruiters and consultants.
The government should reduce the numbers of people unnecessarily on temporary status. However, capping the numbers of new temporary admissions, or changing the terms of the immigration contract after people have arrived, is unjust and shortsighted. We urge you to lead a vision for immigration that recognizes both the enormous contributions of migrant workers and international students and Canada’s clear long term demographic needs for a growing, caring and productive society.
The government should review its policies to ensure that people who will be living here long-term either arrive as permanent residents or can transition quickly to permanent residence through a transparent and accessible process. For those who are in Canada with temporary status, the priority should be to ensure that they enjoy better protections from exploitation including through open work permits, and equal access to the social services that their taxes support, the same as everyone else in the country.
And it is long past time to honour the commitment to regularize those who have been living and contributing to our country for years without status or benefits. The long-term social, health, and financial costs of so many living in precarity without status alongside an expensive removal regime, are far too high.
5. Working in Partnership for Tested Solutions
Canadian organizations and institutions are looked to the world over as leaders in the provision of settlement and integration supports for refugees and newcomers, such as in perfecting one or both of our official languages, filling labour gaps through employment programs, or ensuring children and youth thrive in their new schools. Canada's system is far from perfect, but the partnerships and relationships between community groups, settlement sector organizations, diaspora communities, faith-based organizations and more, with all levels of government in Canada, have formed a fundamental web of support and know-how that millions of newcomers have relied on and in turn become a part of for decades.
We welcome your platform’s commitment to the importance of building diverse communities where the values of fairness, solidarity, resilience and sustainability flourish. This will require long-term, stable investments and collaboration with those working closely with newcomers, whose supports and services put these values into action.
We urge you to engage with CCR, its members, and wider civil society organizations as experienced and trusted partners in building strong immigration and humanitarian programs. We look forward to opportunities for regular dialogue and consultation to ensure that decision making for immigration and refugee policy can be informed and strengthened early in the process by what we know and see from working at the frontlines.
Collaborative action in these five areas will find strong public support, engage the deeply held commitment in all of us to be better neighbours, and help build a better future for all.
We look forward to an opportunity to meet with you to discuss these areas in more depth.
Sincerely,
Diana Gallego
President
Cc.
Hon. Lena Metlege Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Hon. Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety
Hon. Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada