Gauri Sreenivasan is the Co-Executive Director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. She is a leading voice on refugee rights, asylum policy and migrant justice in Canada.
Tell us about Canada’s record in supporting migrants and refugees.
Canada has a long, uneven history in its treatment of migrants and refugees. There have been periods defined by racist exclusion, and programs like the Temporary Foreign Worker Program still enable systemic discrimination and exploitation. Yet we've also seen moments of broad political and public consensus that immigration strengthens Canada. Central to our national identity is the belief that we are a country built on the stewardship of First Peoples and, otherwise, by generations of diverse newcomers.
In recent years, however, Canada has begun to mirror a global trend, explaining failures in social policy by scapegoating migrants and refugees. Across many countries, including acutely in the United States, there is a growing audience for hate and division, fuelled by an emboldened far-right movement. It has become politically convenient to blame pressures in housing and health-care services — to which everyone in Canada has a right — on newcomers rather than on policy shortcomings.
Instead of addressing the real causes of housing shortages or barriers to health care, we are turning neighbour against neighbour. Temporary residents, international students and refugee claimants are increasingly framed as burdens or threats, undermining the long-standing Canadian consensus around immigration and sowing doubt in public opinion. Disturbingly, both provincial and federal leaders have contributed to this toxic narrative, pushing us to a dangerous moment.
We must now ask ourselves what kind of country we want to be in how we approach immigration and welcome migrants and refugees.
CAUT, through its foundation, supports the resettlement of at-risk academics and trade unionists. Can the government do more for these groups?
The CAUT Foundation has played a key role in helping at-risk scholars and labour activists find safety over the years. Its work is deeply appreciated. Canadians are broadly willing to welcome refugees into their communities. Yet the federal government has recently begun cutting resettlement numbers, framing reductions within a broader narrative of our “infrastructure capacity” or “border security.”
Canada has historically run one of the world’s largest resettlement programs, but our refugee numbers are still modest in context. Most refugees are hosted in neighbouring low- and middle-income countries. Because of our geography — three oceans and the U.S. border — few people can physically reach our borders to claim protection. (We host less than 2% of asylum seekers worldwide.) There is no question that the government could do more to welcome refugees.
In a global moment when the United States has effectively suspended its resettlement program, countries like Canada, Australia and the U.K. have a responsibility to step up. Canada can and should expand opportunities for those most at risk.
What about international students?
Rapid and unpredictable policy shifts have created real risks of exploitation, abuse and fraud for international students over the past few years, especially when those shifts jeopardize their legal status. Beyond the practical harms, this instability has weakened students’ sense of welcome and belonging in Canada.
In response, we wrote to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to outline concrete steps the government can take. Our recommendations included fair, transparent and expanded pathways to postgraduate work permits and permanent resident status, as well as access to relevant permits for dependent family members during and after study periods.
Tell us about the We're Better Together campaign.
We launched the We’re Better Together campaign last year as polling, research and media coverage began to show a shift in public opinion. Our members — frontline organizations — were seeing a growing anti-immigrant narrative and urged us to respond with a positive, collective effort that reflects Canadian values.
Canadians are compassionate. They believe in fairness and in protecting migrants and refugees. But they aren't being loud or clear enough about wanting those values reflected in immigration policy. The gap between public support and government action is striking. For example, there is a backlog of 100,000 applications for private sponsorship — meaning 100,000 refugees already have families and communities ready to welcome them.
We’re Better Together is a call to action for civil society organizations and individual Canadians. It's about making our voices heard. We're working to reach new audiences and to bring together refugee serving groups, unions, faith communities, international development organizations, and health and gender justice advocates. We're proud that CAUT has joined the campaign.
Bill C-12 became law this year. It tightens immigration rules and expands federal powers to manage border security. How does it affect refugees?
The passing of Bill C-12 in March pushes Canada away from international norms and reshapes long-standing refugee protection principles. It creates two new grounds of ineligibility for refugee protection claims.
Anyone who has been in Canada for more than a year since their first arrival would no longer be eligible. Anyone who crosses the Canada–U.S. border between ports of entry and seeks protection more than 14 days after arrival would also be ineligible.
These measures effectively deny people the right to seek asylum based on timing or mode of entry rather than on whether they face persecution or danger. They are especially harmful for people, such as LGBTQI+ claimants and survivors of gender-based or domestic violence, who need time and support before they can discuss their experiences or find legal help.
Evidence shows that people who have experienced trauma often need more than a year before they feel safe. Rigid deadlines force people to choose between risking their safety and losing their right to protection.
What would you like to see happen with immigration in Canada?
We’re seeing a tectonic shift in how governments approach immigration, with troubling policy rollbacks, program shutdowns and an escalation in hostile, often racist, rhetoric. In Quebec, for example, there has been a wave of cuts and changes affecting temporary workers, including academic staff, as well as international students and refugee claimants.
In Alberta, we're seeing similarly alarming developments. The government has scheduled a referendum that would ask Albertans to decide whether to restrict access to education and health care to citizens and permanent residents only. That kind of change could push children out of school simply because their parents lack the “right” status.
Local communities across the country need to push back. What I want to see is an immigration system that strengthens Canada’s future rather than reacts to instability in the economy or with the United States with fear or retrenchment. We need stable immigration with a forward-looking approach, one where we are welcoming of refugees and migrants and where the public narrative we have of ourselves is rooted in solidarity, not blame and division.
