At House of Commons, FCJ Refugee Centre Calls for Exemptions to New Bill C-12 Rules

April 30, 2026 FCJ Refugee Centre

Speaking at the House of Commons of Canada this Wednesday, FCJ Refugee Centre’s In-House Lawyer, Joshua Eisen, highlighted the need for regulatory exceptions to the new ineligibility provisions introduced by Bill C-12; and denounced “the extraordinary and unjustifiable delays” for Humanitarian and Compassionate applications, which according to IRCC now stand at more than 10 years.

Eisen spoke as a witness at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM). Watch his full statement in the following video:

Original video: House of Commons of Canada

Transcript:

Good afternoon. My name is Joshua Eisen, and I am in-house counsel at FCJ Refugee Centre, a Toronto-based community organization that works with refugee claimants and other precarious migrants.

Today I will focus on two urgent concerns: first, the need for regulatory exceptions to the new ineligibility provisions introduced by Bill C-12; and second, the extraordinary and unjustifiable delays for Humanitarian and Compassionate applications, which according to IRCC now stand at more than 10 years.

I will begin with Bill C-12.

Under Bill C-12, individuals who wait more than a year after arriving in Canada before making a refugee claim are ineligible for a refugee hearing. Instead, they are diverted to a pre-removal risk assessment, which offers fewer procedural protections.

The one-year bar disproportionately harms some of the most vulnerable claimants: LGBTQ individuals, survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, and people whose risk arises only after they have arrived in Canada, due to changes in conditions in their country of origin.

Importantly, these cases are not exceptional; I regularly meet with clients who have been delayed in filing a claim because of trauma, structural barriers, and other reasons beyond their control.

Under Bill C-12, these individuals lose their right to make a refugee claim simply because more than one year has passed since their arrival in the country. That is not a fair or logical system. It punishes delay without examining the reasons for the delay. It ignores trauma, fear, coercion, and changing global conditions. For that reason, regulatory exceptions must be created for vulnerable groups, including LGBTQ claimants, survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, and sur place claimants, so that these individuals can benefit from a guaranteed oral hearing before the Refugee Protection Division, along with the robust procedural protections that entails.

My second point concerns IRCC’s disturbingly long processing times for applications for permanent residence on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds, commonly known as H&C applications.

Section 25(1) of IRPA gives decision-makers discretion to grant permanent residence to individuals who do not qualify under other streams where there are sufficient humanitarian and compassionate considerations to justify relief. H&C applications are a critical safeguard. They exist to ensure that cases that would otherwise fall through the cracks still have a pathway to permanent residence.

These applications are vital because they prevent some of the most complex and compelling cases from being lost in what can otherwise be a rigid and bureaucratic system.

The best way to understand the importance of H&Cs is through actual cases.

One of my clients was born in the United States while his mother was in transit to Canada from Haiti. He arrived in Canada as an infant, and his mother made a refugee claim. Her claim was accepted, but his was refused because he held U.S. citizenship. When his mother lost her refugee status after briefly returning to Haiti to attend her mother’s funeral, my client was left without any clear pathway to permanent residence in the only country he has ever really known. Now 20 years old, he faces removal to the United State —a country he has not been to since he was a baby, where he knows no one and to which he has no meaningful connection.

Another case involves a young couple who fled violence in their home country and sought refugee protection in Canada. They were represented by a fraudulent “ghost” consultant who mishandled their claim and disappeared with their money, causing their refugee claim to be abandoned. During that time, they had a daughter.

For nine years, they lived underground, without status, trying to build a life and protect their family. Recently, they were located by CBSA, which initiated removal proceedings. Deportation would mean forcing their nine-year-old daughter, a Canadian citizen, to leave the only home she has ever known and relocate to a country she has never seen, where she does not even speak the language.

In both of these cases, the only realistic pathway to stability and permanent residence is an H&C application.

Unfortunately, that safeguard is now effectively dead. IRCC’s current processing times for H&C applications exceed 10 years. During that time, applicants often remain without status, without the right to work, and under the constant threat of removal. In many cases, removal defeats the purpose of the application. By the time a decision is made, the harm the H&C process was meant to prevent has already happened.

If H&Cs are to remain a meaningful tool, there must be revisions to the government’s Immigration Levels Plan, at least as it applies to these applications. Under the current plan, more than 50,000 H&C applicants are competing for 1100 spaces this year. The number of applicants will only continue to rise, while the number of spaces is actually set to decrease in the coming years.

H&C applications cannot function as a meaningful safeguard if applicants are expected to spend a decade in limbo before receiving a decision. If we are serious about fairness, compassion, and the integrity of our immigration system, this must change. Otherwise, H&Cs are little more than window dressing, allowing Canada to maintain the illusion that there is an exceptional pathway for hardship cases, when in reality that pathway has been blocked.

I thank you for your time.