Closing the Ottawa immigration and refugee hearings office and moving hearings to Montreal could put the most vulnerable claimants at risk, local refugee lawyers say.
The federal government announced last year that hearings at the Immigration and Refugee Board’s headquarters on Slater Street will be transferred to its Montreal office as of April 1.
The move creates more difficulties and added travel costs for refugee claimants who can’t afford private representation and rely on legal aid services, says Michael Bossin, a refugee lawyer at Community Legal Services Ottawa Centre.
“We don’t have money to pay for our staff to travel to Montreal for hearings, and we’re also funded by Legal Aid Ontario, so that’s not really an option for us,” Bossin says. “All of our clients are really poor, and most of them are on social assistance, so they don’t have the money either.”
Currently, there is an agreement between Legal Aid Ontario and Quebec, where Ottawa residents can get their services paid for by Quebec’s legal aid when the proceedings are held in Montreal.
But Peter Showler, director of the Refugee Forum at the University of Ottawa, says the agreement is not a permanent solution.
“Legal Aid Ontario, at least in the long term, is not prepared to pay for Ontario counsel to drive to Montreal in order to represent refugee claimants that are residents in Ottawa,” Showler says.
Showler says hiring a lawyer in Montreal is another challenge for refugee claimants, whether they’re paid for by legal aid or not.
“It’s not just a matter of going to Montreal for the hearing, but it’s all the work you need to do to prepare for the hearing. So it puts refugees at a tremendous disadvantage if they’ve got to find some way to get to Montreal, three or four or five times to adequately prepare their case.”
The decision to close the Ottawa office will move hearings for its refugee protection, immigration, and immigration appeal divisions. New refugee protection claims made since last Dec. 15 are already being transferred to Montreal.
Immigration and Refugee Board spokesperson Robert Gervais said in an email that the government expects to save $769,000 annually from the move.
The board won’t be increasing the number of employees at its Montreal office and Gervais said that any additional work resulting from the transfer of hearings will be done by the existing staff.
Immigration and refugee lawyer Julie Taub, who recently represented a client via video conference in Ottawa, says video conferencing would an acceptable solution.
“There have been a lot of refugee hearings being done by video conferencing over the last couple of years. I have absolutely no problems with video conferencing,” says Taub.
The board currently has one hearing room that’s equipped for video conferences, but it hasn’t decided whether additional facilities will be added.
“The IRB is currently considering proposals by stakeholders to mitigate the impact of the closure but no decision in this regard has been taken,” Gervais said in the email.
Showler says the possibility of video conference hearings is still a poor compromise, because of the difficulty of assessing credibility without hearing the claim in person.
“I think it’s a great shame that they’re closing the office here, because they’re doing it for solely reasons of money. But the consequences are it’s going to be more difficult for refugee claimants who are residents of Ottawa in proving their refugee claims,” says Showler.