Originally this story Appears on Canada’s National Observer and be part of Climate table cooperation.
As drought, deteriorating arable land and rising sea levels push people around the world from their homes, advocates in Canada are calling on the federal government to support those — and will — displaced because of the climate crisis.
In August, the Canadian Climate Action Network (CAN-Rac), an organization of more than 100 environmental groups around the country, sent a Letters to prime minister Justin Trudeau and Immigration Minister Sean Fraser asked them to grant permanent residency to all 1.7 million migrants in Canada, including half a million undocumented. Caroline Brouillette, CAN-Rac’s national policy director, explains this process of “regularization” as key to climate justice.
“Fighting the climate crisis is not just about reducing emissions, it’s about how we care about each other — and that’s why we’re asking for this,” she said.
Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Coalition for Change (MWAC), which worked with CAN-Rac to deliver the letter, said climate change has been a factor driving people into immigration. Canada. But while climate migrants arrive in the country as workers, students or refugees, they “may not even describe their experiences as a result of climate change. “.
He said many migrants’ understanding of climate change is that it causes poverty.
“Climate change is actually closely related to economic downturns,” explains Hussan.
Take farmers as an example. Land degradation is one of the biggest impacts of climate change, he said. Barren land means poor-quality crops, forcing farmers to move to towns and cities in search of work. But many are unable to find work in larger urban centres, he added, leaving them with no choice but to leave their homeland and look for opportunities in Canada.
Along with poor quality crops, water scarcity and rising sea levels are among the top causes that the World Bank guess will force 216 million people to migrate within their own countries by 2050. This estimate does not include people in Europe, North America, the Middle East or small island developing nations like Barbados or Kiribati.
“For many people, the only option is to come here with some sort of temporary permit,” says Hussan.
Once they reach Canada, many still face significant hardship – which is why MWAC is campaigning for all migrants, including temporary foreign workers, to be granted permanent residency. core. “A person without permanent residency or citizenship has no equal rights in Canada,” says Hussan.
A recent example was a group of Jamaican immigrant farm workers in Ontario who wrote a open letter to Jamaica’s Labor Minister Karl Samuda earlier last month saying they were experiencing “systematic slavery”, with extremely poor working conditions including crowded housing, exposure to pesticides dangerous and abusive by the employer.
Hussan said MWAC plans to propose a “permanent formalization program” to the federal government in the future but did not say exactly what this would look like, other than it would allow “everyone in the country to have the same immigration status and the same rights.”
Create new travel paths
Meanwhile, some groups are calling for the government to make climate change a viable excuse for migrants to obtain Canadian permanent residence. Last year, the Canadian Association of Asylum Lawyers (CARL) published a report outlines some of the options the federal government can make.
It’s not feasible for climate migrants to come to Canada as refugees, said Rachel Bryce, an associate attorney at Landings Law and co-chair of CARL. Under Canadian law, refugees are strictly defined as people outside their home country with a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, social group or political views. .
CARL wants Canada to allow climate migrants to gain status protected person law. This is available to people already in Canada who do not qualify as refugees but would face significant risk if they returned to their home country.
Adding climate migrants to a protected category would pave the way for permanent residence if a person can prove their homeland is no longer safe from the effects of climate change. Bryce said: While a specific target group on climate change for “protected people” would require a change to the law, it is also possible to amend the Immigration and Refugees Act to allow those Climate migrants are allowed to stay on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, Bryce said.
Canada is one of the countries with largest greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the largest fossil fuel producers – and is responsible for bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, Brouillette said. CAN-Rac also highlights the importance of Canada taking action to reduce emissions.
“It’s about Canada doing its fair share in the global effort to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and taking responsibility for our disproportionate contribution to the crisis,” Brouillette said.
