This is the third in a three-part series highlighting CPJ’s recommendations for the 2014 federal budget as contained in Fulfilling our Collective Responsibility, our annual brief to the House of Commons’ Finance Committee. This week, we discuss the injustice facing privately sponsored refugees in Canada.
In preparing our pre-budget submission, CPJ looked to our own Poverty Trends Scorecard series. The three reports have repeatedly shown that certain vulnerable populations, including young people, Aboriginals, and new Canadians, suffer from higher than average rates of poverty and unemployment.
According to our Labour Market Trends report, the unemployment rate for recent immigrants was at 13.5 per cent in 2012. While this is more than two percentage points below its peak of 15.8 per cent in 2010, it is still well above the pre-recession rate of 11.8%.
This trend has many implications for the lives of newcomers. Among the population of recent immigrants, refugees have some of the highest needs. After fleeing war, famine, persecution, or other atrocities, refugees often arrive in Canada with serious medical concerns and few social supports. While Canadians pride ourselves on our public health care system, most of us receive supplemental health care through our employment. With a jobless rate at near twice the national average, newcomers, and refugees in particular, require additional support.
That’s why for 55 years, refugees have relied on the Interim Federal Health (IFH) program to provide coverage for supplemental health services, including eye and dental care, medication, and prosthetic devices. So, many were shocked and surprised in 2012 when the federal government announced that they were cancelling the program for privately sponsored refugees. What wasn’t surprising was the outpouring for support for refugees that has since been seen across Canada.
As its rationale for these cuts, the government cites equality, deterrence, and cost savings. A fulsome rebuttal of all three of these arguments can be found in our letter to CIC Minister Jason Kenney and our article in the Victoria Times Colonist. It’s clear that from a public justice perspective, providing such care for the least advantaged in our society is critical to fulfilling our collective responsibility to each other. Yet even from a budgetary perspective, the prudent choice would be make this small investment in refugee health care which would result in large savings for refugee sponsors, provinces, health services providers.
Fiscal responsibility
Budgets are about choices and show where our government’s priorities lie. The direct cost to the federal government for the IFH program is $20 million per year. For a federal government that spends over $250 billion annually, this is next to nothing. While they’ve made the decision that providing support for refugee health care is not worth the extra cost, they’ve shown over and over that they are willing to incur costs on behalf of other groups.
The past few budgets have been fraught with “boutique” tax credits. Tax credits in general result in foregone revenue by allowing taxpayers to keep more money, which is not altogether a bad thing. The problem with boutique tax credits is that they favour specific groups, usually upper-class Canadians, and rarely change behaviour in ways they are intended to. While politicians often use them as a way to “buy votes,” they have been roundly criticized by organizations on both the left and the right.
The non-refundable Public Transit Tax Credit alone could fund the IFH program five times over. As could the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit. Our federal government foregoes $100 million in revenues per year for each of these.
A reset on refugees
Despite united opposition to these cuts from the medical community, Minister Kenney has stubbornly refused to budge on this issue. In fact, he has actually amped up his rhetoric by frequently referring to refugees as “bogus” or “queue jumpers.”
At the Cabinet shuffle in July, Prime Minister Harper named Chris Alexander as the new Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. This may have given some hope that more flexibility and change are on the way. But refugee advocates, including Dr. Mike Dillon, with Canadian Doctors for Refugee Health Care, are not so optimistic. And even so, Jason Kenney has stayed on as the Minster of State for Multiculturalism, ensuring that he will continue to play a role in immigration policy.
CPJ is calling on the federal government to rescind these cuts in Budget 2014. Moving forward, we will continue to explore all legislative opportunities to rescind these cuts and enact justice for all refugees. But a foundational part of that work is changing how we talk about refugees in Canada.
As the Proud to Protect Refugees campaign moves into its second year, there will be plenty of chances to do so at events across the country. Several Canadian churches, including the Anglican, Christian Reformed, Lutheran, Mennonite, and Presbyterian, have made declarations in support of refugees. Be sure to check our website later this fall on ways you can show your support for refugees.
