“Together, We Are Invincible”: Alex Neve’s Remarks at the FCJ Refugee Centre’s 35th Anniversary Gala
Following is the full speech by Alex Neve at the FCJ Refugee Centre’s 35th Anniversary Gala (October 15, 2026; Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre).
Together, we are invincible
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Tonight is all about those twelve powerful words and the reminder that at the end of the day, the measure of their true worth lies in our own hands.
We are here tonight because, assuredly, we all believe those words, deep in our heart. We are here because, I have no doubt, many amongst us have lived the reality of the promise of those words being denied and betrayed; and many/most/ of you commit yourself to delivering on that promise in ways both seen and unseen every day. We are here because those words speak to what is achingly heaving and broken our world; but also of an entirely different world that is so very possible and, truly, within reach.
And we are here because those words are most powerful and soar to their heights when embraced in community, certainly in the very special FCJ Refugee Centre community we are celebrating tonight.
Those twelve words are, or certainly should be, self-evident. Words that have perhaps never mattered more. Words that remind us of an essential truth: Human rights are universal.
We come together tonight for that, yes, essential, but at the same time very simple truth. Truth that holds us all. Human rights are grounded and rooted in our common humanity. Human rights reflect the dignity, freedom and equality of all people, everywhere. All human beings. Every single one of us.
Human rights cross borders. Human rights cannot be kept out or locked up. They are not excluded, cannot be denied or found inadmissible, and do not lack credibility or plausibility. They cannot be interdicted, turned back or refouled. They are not temporary, occasional or exceptional.
They are not sometimes legal and other times illegal. They are not a privilege. They are certainly not colour-coded. And they are definitely not something left to the whims and ideology of governments and power elites.
Human rights are as much yours as they are mine. For one reason, and one reason alone: the fact that we were born. Not because of when, to whom or where we were born. They are not tied to that place or to any place.
Human rights move with me, with you, with us. Whether we move because we want to; for love, study, work or adventure. Or if we move because we have to; to escape, to survive, to renew and rebuild.
I have sat with, interviewed, listened to and learned from refugees in all corners of the world. In camps and detention centres, in shelters and reception centres, in schools, hospitals and markets, along roadsides and in desolate fields. I have had those encounters on both sides of borders – sometimes a border that is an unseen and undefended line in a desert landscape, other times a border that is fortified, armed and almost impossible to cross.
Nearly 20 years ago, I sat with Mahamat Timan Ahman, who was 76 years old and had been a carpenter all his life.
Mahamat walked slowly, with the aid of a cane and his sight and his hearing were not what they had once been. We met in the windswept, isolated and makeshift Maltam Refugee Camp in an isolated corner of northern Cameroon, where he had fled to escape devastating fighting, which had destroyed his home and left several of his neighbours dead, across the border in N’Djamena, the Chadian capital. His wife had died several years earlier. He was in the camp with his son and his family. It was the first time that he had lived anywhere other than the neighbourhood and community in which had been born, lived his entire life and raised his family.
I asked about his plans, including when he hoped he might be able to return home. He sadly told me that he felt like he was “saying good-bye to his life in Chad” and would likely remain in the camp, probably until he died, given the ongoing insecurity and given his age.
“After all, he had no rights”, he said with a sense of resignation. “Everyone knows that once you leave your country you have no more rights.”
The lawyer in me kicked in and I fear that I offered him assurances from various international legal instruments, such as the Universal Declaration and the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention that made it clear he still had rights. I offered words, which I fear did little, understandably in the face of his reality and hardship, to convince him otherwise.
I left that encounter with Mahamat, though, with clear-eyed determination. What I took forward is the imperative to transform Mahamat’s bleak observation to, instead, a confident manifesto. Which goes something like the following:
Everyone knows that when you leave your country for whatever reason your rights come with you. However far you may go and wherever you may end up. Your rights are there, alongside every step of the journey.
In so many ways that is what FCJ Refugee Centre stands for, and has since day one. That has certainly always been the vision of FCJ’s founders, Francisco and Loly Rico.
And so I begin this evening with a shout out to the amazing, vital, inspiring organization we are honouring and celebrating this evening. But more than an organization, this is all about the incredible movement and the remarkable people that make up FCJ Refugee Centre. The organization, movement and people who have, for 35 years, been ‘walking with uprooted people’.
Walking with uprooted people on a journey that is all about the precious, beautiful, and yes, all powerful universality of human rights. No matter how contested and imperfect it may be, nothing can take away the simple majesty of that promise.
An anniversary is many things, and this one certainly is. It is nostalgic and full of memories. FCJ overflows with memories. It is celebratory, offering an opportunity to do something we rarely take the time to do in social justice work – take stock of all our remarkable achievements and accomplishments. FCJ has heaps of such moments. It is also often a time for somber reflection, as an anniversary also reminds us of setbacks, challenges and all that we have yet to overcome. That lies with us tonight as well, of course it does.
An anniversary most certainly invites us back to the beginning. So, let’s do just that for a moment. What’s changed? What hasn’t changed?
Going back, 35 years ago, we would find ourselves in 1991. A time, certainly not without war, persecution and suffering; but also a time when change seemed to be afoot. There was a mood of considerable expectation and a palpable sense of hope in the world. Totalitarianism was giving way across Eastern Europe and the Cold War, which had defined global politics and been the cause of devastating proxy conflicts for decades, had come to an end. The Berlin Wall had come down two years earlier and the Soviet Union was no more. There was a clear transition underway from the military dictatorships and death squads that had terrorized Latin America for years, towards democratic governments in the region. Nelson Mandela had been released from prison in South Africa the year before, after 27 years of imprisonment, and the path toward the end of apartheid was opening up.
Not all rosy eyed by any means, for instance following Sadam Hussein’s invasion of Iraq the previous year, 1991 was also the year of the first Iraq War, the aftermath of which provoked a grim refugee crisis. One million Kurds and other refugees fled from northern Iraq and were met with closed borders that left them stranded in freezing temperatures, without food, in snow-covered mountain passes.
Nevertheless, it was clear that the geopolitical changes underway generated a sense of optimism not witnessed in world affairs for decades, which continued through much of the 1990’s, a decade during which we saw great strides in international justice, banning landmines, protecting child soldiers, and more.
Yes there was hope but also change afoot in 1991. A look back to history reminds us of what is possible. That even when it may feel otherwise, all is by no means lost.
Yet the UNHCR reported that there were 17 million refugees in the world in 1991, noting that figure had “increased dramatically as a product of some of the largest and swiftest population flows experienced during the four decades of existence of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.”
I’ll come back to this but hold on to this figure as comparison. 35 years later, the UNHCR tells us that there are now nearly 42 million refugees in the world. That’s a 245% increase from that 1991 refugee crisis, characterized at the time as unprecedented.
Meanwhile, here in Canada? Politically, Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister. The year began with one Minister of Employment and Immigration, as the portfolio was then known, Barbara MacDougall, and ended with another minister, Bernard Valcourt.
The Immigration and Refugee Board had only been around for two years and was still finding its feet. It was already being lauded around the world though as a gold standard for refugee determination system, particularly in its commitment to independence.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark Singh ruling, which made it clear that the Charter of Rights extends to refugee claimants, and that an oral hearing is a foundational principle in a fair refugee process, was itself only six years old. It had embedded the universality of human rights into the very centre of refugee protection in Canada.
Many of you likely noted that earlier this month, in an interview with Radio Canada, our current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lena Diab, made it clear that she knows nothing of that seminal SCC judgement. That lack of awareness at a time when she has presided over law reform that hollows out much of what Singh stands for. So it would seem that history and more to the point, history lessons, do, apparently, matter.
Most important of all 1991 is when Francisco Rico Martinez and Loly Rico, refugees from El Salvador, had a dream.
To create a place of safety, support and solidarity for refugees. A place rooted in understanding and community. A place that would be like home, and would be surrounded by a blanket of solidarity. A place grounded in the universality of human rights.
The dream became a vision, a plan and a reality. And with the generous support of the Sisters of the Faithful Companions of Jesus, FCJ Hamilton House Refugee Project, and then later, FCJ Refugee Centre, was born.
Loly of course is with us for tonight’s festivities. I expect that pretty well everyone here in this room tonight has had their heart nourished, their soul soothed and their resolve strengthened by Loly’s support, wisdom, and inspiring example of selflessness.
Francisco, though, sadly is not with us. But wait, of course he is with us in so many ways. I can hear his booming laugh and I see his broad, infectious smile. I feel the force of his passionate defence of refugee rights and dignity. His brilliant ideas for campaigning and advocacy, his mentorship for young activists and his bedrock, unshakeable grassroots solidarity are very much in the air. And his courageous outspokenness, when silence is not an option. Let us all take that home with us for there is absolutely no place for silence in our world in 2026.
35 years later, I do not need to remind any of us that the glimmer of hope we felt for the world in 1991 has dimmed. We won’t ever let it be extinguished but it is not shining bright.
And we feel that. These are heavy times.
War in Ukraine, Iran, and Sudan. Three years of genocide in Gaza. Entrenched human rights crises and humanitarian catastrophes that rarely garner the headlines anymore in Afghanistan, in Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, and elsewhere.
The downward spiral and the upward extremities of the climate crisis are no longer a distant prospect or an exceptional emergency, they are our new normal. Our planet burns and floods and bold, decisive climate action, at least at national and global levels, seems to be on no agenda. Canada instead is apparently back in the pipelines game.
Hatemongers, warmongers, tyrants and racists rule. They have moved the goalposts of our international order so dramatically that one of those so-called leaders has even managed to delude himself into believing that he should be lauded as a great- and “noble” – champion of peace, even while he wages and enables war and genocide abroad and, at home, has launched a full out war against refugees and migrants. Peace, certainly, lies not in that direction.
All of which – war, climate and hate – of course force people to flee, to move and to seek refuge. And to come to FCJ’s door.
Such a time for our governments, therefore, to embrace the universality of human rights at our borders.
But instead, we live in a world that spends more time, more resources and more political will on avoiding, restricting, turning back and punishing refugees than it does on welcoming and protecting.
The dangers of seeking refuge in that world of ever higher barriers are extreme. How often do we hear wrenching accounts of refugees and migrants drowned or lost at sea, as they are forced to take more perilous routes in perilous seas in perilous, crowded and unseaworthy boats. One week ago tonight, an overcrowded ship carrying refugees and migrants capsized in the perilous Bab el-Mandeb Strait, crossing from Djibouti to Yemen. At last count 139 men, women and children are confirmed dead and another 80 remain unaccounted for.
The numbers have never been higher. 42 million refugees, 9 million asylum seekers, and 69 million internally displaced persons, trapped within their own countries. That means 1 in every 70 people in our world has been forcibly displaced. 119 million people with families, hopes and dreams. 119 million people with rights.
But instead of responding to that reality with responsibility, understanding and a commitment to international law, the politics of demonizing and vilifying refugees dominate, have regularly become the fodder of election campaigns, and have swept mean-spirited, cruel leaders into power, including some of the highest offices of power on the planet.
The impact globally is not just political, the capacity and resources for protecting refugees are being gutted. The United States has traditionally funded between 40-45% of the UNHCR’s annual budget but the second Trump Administration has slashed that in half. At the same time they have shut down the US refugee resettlement program, unless you are a white South African of course.
In fact most of the top dozen countries that provide the bulk of UNHCR’s funding have cut their contributions in the last two years, saying they needed to divert humanitarian resources to defense and domestic expenditures. That includes Canada, our contribution in 2026 is down by $18 million, a 20% cut. Military spending way up, refugee protection spending way down.
As a result, the UNHCR budget has been decimated by well over $1 billion. 5,000 UNHCR employees have lost their jobs in the last two years and 140 of the organization’s offices have been closed.
As UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barham Salih, recently told the Security Council, the situation is “untenable, unsustainable, and genuinely, truly, inhumane.”
Canada and Canadians have often been a beacon of hope when it comes to refugee protection. Goes back to our response to the Indochinese refugee crisis in the 1980’s, which opened up Canada’s remarkable private sponsorship program and led to the people of Canada being awarded the Nansen Award, the equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize in the world of refugee protection, 40 years ago, in 1986. It is the only time the Award has gone to an entire nation. Other high water moments include the creation of the Immigration and Refugee Board and, more recently, strong programs of protection for Syrian and Ukrainian refugees.
But let us not be smug. And most certainly let us not feel we have done our part.
For instance, while remarkable and important, 45,000 Syrians resettled in the course of one year pales in comparison to what has been demanded and expected of other countries – in both the Global North and Global South.
Ask Germans, who opened their borders to 1 million refugees to literally walk into the country in late 2015, ask Bangladeshis who welcomed 750,000 Rohingya refugees in just over 8 weeks in 2017.
We have, truly, not been tested. We have not had to dig deep as a nation and show the true strength of our commitment to borders being a place where the universality of human rights prevails.
Witness our disgraceful stance on access to refugee protection along the Canada/US border during Donald Trump’s unrelenting assault on the basic rights of refugees and migrants, which, it seems impossible to believe, has intensified dramatically and violently in his Second Administration.
Not only has our government remained steadfastly silent in the face of that violence, injustice and dehumanization. Nary a word about ICE’s masked, street corner abductions and killings. Worse, through the combination of the Canada/US STCA and the recent draconian reforms in Bill C-12, we have shut down our land border to refugees. No matter where or how a refugee may seek to cross that border out of the United States to seek safety in Canada, they will be turned back.
And while our response to Syria and Ukraine has been commendable, what of the racist hurdles and barriers refugees from Gaza and Sudan continue to face.
But here this is something very different in the air, that connects us all. For this evening, we celebrate everything that FCJ Refugee Centre has been, is today, and will be for years to come – for us, for the thousands who have had a temporary stay or come through the doors, in this place. Everything that the Centre has become for this community and for Toronto.
Let us renew and redouble our determination and passion to take everything this wonderful, warm, safe, welcoming place is and promote and champion that same vision far and wide.
To the Canada/US border, to the heart of Canadian refugee policy, to the corners of our world where hate, fear and suspicion close doors and turn backs to refugees, and to the places of immense need where refugees find shelter from genocide, mass atrocities and war, and struggle to hold onto hope.
To the conversations with friends, neighbours and co-workers where we push back against doubt and despair.
For whether we come from people who were refugees; whether we now are refugees; whether we might become refugees; or whether we have the good fortune and privilege to know safety and well-being and do not face the fear and prospect of fleeing our homes – it is a reality and a responsibility we all share.
FCJ Refugee Centre speaks to us of the values, the vision and the universality that must guide that journey.
When borders are closed to refugees, FCJ shows up and insists: human rights know no borders.
When funding is cut and programs scaled back, FCJ shows up, ready to do the hard work to keep refugees safe and supported.
When refugees face hateful politics and racism, FCJ shows us what it is to believe in humanity.
When a door closes, FCJ show up and opens another one.
And when the challenges seem insurmountable and it is tempting to give up, FCJ shows up and makes us see how strong we are, when we believe and when we come together.
For here, solidarity lives and is, in the end, invincible.
If ever there was a time for a world full of FCJ Refugee Centres; offering warmth, safety, support, community and new beginnings – this is it.
Happiest of anniversaries to this very special place and its very special people.
Alex Neve is a visiting and adjunct professor in international human rights law at the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University, and a Senior Fellow with the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He presently serves as a Member of the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela. He was Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada from 2000 – 2020. He took part in over forty human rights research and advocacy delegations throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, Guantánamo Bay and, closer to home, First Nations communities in Canada. He has an LLB from Dalhousie University and a Master’s Degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex. He has served as a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board, taught at Osgoode Hall Law School, been affiliated with York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies, and worked as a refugee lawyer in private practice and in a community legal aid clinic. Alex has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada and served as a Trudeau Foundation Mentor. He is a recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. He has received three honorary Doctorate of Laws degrees. Alex was the 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer, addressing the theme of Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World.
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