Good news regarding the reception of refugees is rather rare these days. Here is one that deserves to be saluted: after the media coverage of the Kafkaesque story of sponsorship of Emmanuel Ndikuriyo, a refugee forced by Quebec to abandon his orphaned brothers and sisters to see his hope of a better life come true, the Quebec Ministry of Immigration has just changed its law relating to collective sponsorship to allow any refugee caught in the same inhumane situation to escape.
“I am overwhelmed with joy after hearing this news. The whole family is happy,” Emmanuel, a Burundian refugee who lives with his six brothers and sisters in Nakivale refugee camp, Uganda, told me via WhatsApp.
This glimmer of hope to which Emmanuel can now cling was made possible thanks to the determination of Sylvain Thibault, volunteer representative of the family’s group of godparents. He was the one who brought this matter to my attention last fall. For several months, this man, who fell into sponsorship when he was little and made the defense of the rights of refugees the cause of his life, has moved heaven and earth to denounce the untenable situation in which the Ministry of Immigration , Francisation and Integration (MIFI) placed these refugees1.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Sylvain Thibault
He alerted his former colleagues at the Consultation Table of Organizations Serving Refugees and Immigrants (TCRI). He alerted the media. My Radio-Canada colleague Romain Schué reported on it. I wrote a review about it. In the process, several voices were raised to try to put pressure on the office of Minister Christine Fréchette.
Five months later, Sylvain can say mission accomplished. “I sleep much better and I feel like an injustice has been righted. »
Emmanuel’s story is a fairly classic one of a refugee in search of hope for himself and his family. With his brothers and sisters, he was forced to flee repression in Burundi after the assassination of both their parents on June 30, 2015. The only adult among his siblings at the time of this assassination, Emmanuel, who, like his brothers and sisters , has refugee status recognized by the United Nations, has become in a way their father. It is he who, for almost ten years, has been watching over them in a refugee camp where living conditions are difficult.
In his bad luck, Emmanuel was still lucky: in 2021, a group of Quebec citizens volunteered to sponsor him and his family and allow him to aspire to a better life. But the desire to welcome his godparents came up against the coldness of the small administrative offices of the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration last fall.
Quebec presented Emmanuel with a tough choice: if he wanted his sponsorship application to go forward, he had to resolve to leave his brothers and sisters behind in the refugee camp.
Because, under the small boxes of Quebec, they could not be considered as family members or dependent children who could be included in the same sponsorship application.
Hence this question asked last fall: if the brothers and sisters that this refugee has taken care of since they were orphans are not considered his family, what is a family in the eyes of the MIFI?
Considering that, according to Ottawa, which is ultimately responsible for any sponsorship request, these same orphan brothers and sisters, who depend on their older brother, are undoubtedly members of his family and meet the definition of “de facto dependents” of ‘Immigration Canada, why can’t Quebec also consider them as such?
For what ? Because that’s how it is, the MIFI communications department replied to me in a laconic email in December. “The Ministry is well aware of the file and the decisions reflect the law and regulations in force. »
According to the criteria then in force, only Emmanuel’s biological or adopted children could have entered here in the small “family” box of his sponsorship file.
The law was finally amended a few days a week ago, correcting this administrative flaw and aligning the criteria of Quebec and Ottawa2. The MIFI now recognizes that Emmanuel’s brothers and sisters, even if they are not strictly speaking “dependent children”, are “de facto dependents” for humanitarian reasons, because they maintain a relationship of emotional and economic dependence on him. Humanity will have taken precedence over absurdity.
“We welcome this change and we encourage the MIFI to prioritize humanitarian cases, especially when there are children,” Stephan Reichhold, general director of the TCRI, told me.
What should be particularly welcomed here is that Minister Christine Fréchette did not simply use her discretionary power to resolve this single high-profile issue, as is often done when Kafkaesque immigration stories are put on the table. in light.
When such a thing happens, although it remains good news for those whose lives will be changed, in reality, we have not resolved much. The denounced flaw remains the same for all the others who will follow and whose story will never be told. By modifying the law for all sponsored refugees whose future also found itself between two boxes of the MIFI, we ensure that this no longer happens.
Although this is good news, this change obviously does not solve everything for the majority of refugees awaiting sponsorship. While 1,626 applications were submitted in 2023 to the MIFI by groups of Quebec sponsors (from 2 to 5 people) ready to participate in this exemplary program which is now only a shadow of itself, Quebec has limited it to 425 the number of files accepted by drawing lots3. In other words, the boxes of the MIFI remain far too narrow for the generosity and social conscience of Quebec citizens who wish to do what they can in a world in crisis where the number of refugees is increasing.
As for the lucky winners of this humanitarian lottery, if the trend continues, they will still have to wait on average more than 33 months for Ottawa to process their file. Despite this new light at the end of the long Quebec-Ottawa bureaucratic tunnel, they are, unfortunately, far from being out of it.
1. Read “From Ru to reality »
2. Consult the legal changes
3. Read “Legacy Sponsorship”