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.

Read also:
– Changes to the Refugee Process: How Will Bill C-12 Affect You?
– FCJ Refugee Centre, at the Senate: “Bill C-12 will result in a refugee system that is more inefficient, more arbitrary, less fair and less humane”
– FCJ Refugee Centre Advocates Before House of Commons Committees for the Withdrawal of Bill C-12

FCJ Refugee Centre joined healthcare providers, refugees and community members this Friday in Toronto to call on the federal government to reverse the announced cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) refugee healthcare coverage.

The federal government has cut 15% of the refugee healthcare budget and is introducing unaffordable co-payments for essential healthcare, including medications, mental health counselling, physical therapy, and vision care.

These cuts take effect May 1, 2026, and will immediately harm refugees, who are already struggling to meet basic needs, like food and housing.

These co-payments function as a denial of care – refugees’ health will worsen, more individuals will unnecessarily end up in already strained emergency departments and hospitals, and health care costs will rise. Financially, the co-payment plan will cost Canada more, not less.

Gallery (29 pictures):

Sign and amplify these petitions calling on the government to stop cuts to refugee healthcare. Once you sign it, send to 5 friends and ask them to pass it on!

• Canadian Medical Association:
  https://www.cma.ca/get-involved/health-advocacy
• Canadian Pediatric Society:
  https://cps.ca/en/advocacy-defense/speak-out-protecting-ifhp-benefits
• Migrant Rights Network:
  https://migrantrights.ca/actionslist/stopifhpcuts/
• Canadian Council for Refugees:
  https://www.ccrweb.ca/en/act-now-write-your-mp-stop-cuts-refugee-healthcare

FCJ Refugee Centre intervened in the case, advocating for the right to access childcare and for a broader prohibition on discrimination based on a person’s immigration status

Refugee claimants with young children in Quebec are eligible for the province’s subsidized child-care system, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month in a majority decision that focused on Charter equality rights.

The case dates back to October 2018, when Bijou Cibuabua Kanyinda, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo and a mother of three young children, applied for refugee status after entering Canada at Roxham Road on Quebec’s border with the United States.

While her application was pending, she received a work permit and looked for subsidized child-care, but she was rejected on the grounds that Quebec public child-care system is open to people with refugee status but not to those with pending claims.

Ms. Kanyinda challenged the regulation in court, in a case in which FCJ Refugee Centre intervened, advocating for her right to access childcare and for a broader prohibition on discrimination based on a person’s immigration status.

On March 6, eight of nine Supreme Court judges agreed that the Quebec regulation violated the equality rights of refugee women under Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, both by posing a disparate impact on their ability to access the labour market and by furthering their social isolation.

The Supreme Court dismissed the government’s appeal and affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal for Quebec below, which had come to the same conclusion. As a remedy, the Court took the step of reading in refugee claimants to the list of persons in the statute who qualify for subsidized daycare in the province.

FCJ Refugee Centre’s arguments at the Supreme Court focused on whether immigration status should be considered an analogous ground under Section 15 of the Charter, which prohibits discrimination on a variety of grounds including race, sex, etc.

While the court did not go so far as to recognize immigration status as an analogous ground, this decision represents a big win. Significantly, Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote a concurring opinion in which he found that refugee claimants form an analogous category under Section15 of the Charter, meaning disadvantaging refugee claimants solely because they are refugee claimants would be impermissible discrimination under Canada’s constitution. Since Chief Justice Wagner was writing alone on this point, his concurring opinion does not change the law, but it is an important step in the right direction.

FCJ Refugee Centre would like to thank all the organizations and lawyers who have worked on this case, including Joshua Eisen, FCJ Refugee Centre’s In-House Lawyer; Y. Y. Brandon Chen, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law; the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre; and Bruce Porter, from the Social Rights Advocacy Centre.

The Winter 2026 Newsletter is here! Check out what we’ve been up to these past few months, and have a look to some of our upcoming events and activities. Don’t miss it!

In this issue you’ll find, among many other things, photos of our participation in the International Women’s Day March, information about the Soli*City 2026 Global Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, in which we also participated, and details about the government’s decision requiring refugee claimants to co-pay for some of their health care coverage.

All this, along with a very special announcement: tickets for the FCJ Refugee Centre’s 35th Anniversary Gala Dinner are now available for purchase! And you can also become a sponsor and make a real difference in the lives of refugees, migrants, and people in precarious situations.

Represented by our Co-Executive Director Diana Gallego, FCJ Refugee Centre just had the great opportunity to participate at the Soli*City 2026 Global Summit, held last week in Cape Town, South Africa.

The roundtable brought together representatives from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America, to discuss findings from their empirical research on urban migrant and refugee sanctuary and solidarity, and transformative practices.

Soli*City, of which FCJ Refugee Centre is a partner organization, is an international partnership project dedicated to studying urban sanctuary, solidarity, and hospitality for precarious migrants and refugees.