Ideas - Why are refugee rights not protected equally?

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to leave any country and to return to it. We also have a right to seek "asylum from persecution" in other countries. Are these rights protected for everyone? At a time when more people are forcibly displaced than at any other point in recorded history, Nahlah Ayed speaks with guests about where the rights to leave, return and seek refuge came from, and what they could mean today. *This is part three in a five-part series examining human rights. It originally aired on Sept. 4, 2024.

It's not the dark you have to be afraid of. It's what's hiding within it. The Shaw Festival presents Wait Until Dark. In a New York apartment, a blind woman becomes the target of ruthless criminals. As night falls, she must use all her wits to survive. Don't miss this heart-stopping thriller, Wait Until Dark at the Shaw. For tickets, go to shawfest.com. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayaad.

And welcome to a live taping of Ideas at the Stratford Festival. How do we create a better world? How do we articulate the kind of future in which we want to live? A little more than 75 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations, we're talking about that document and how well it stands up to the test of time. Born out of the devastation of the Second World War, the Universal Declaration was intended to set the world on a new course. Some of the questions we'll be asking here are what new world were those rights supposed to create?

What's the relationship between rights and realities? Between calling for a more just world and actually bringing it into being? Today's panel is the third in the series and we're looking at articles 13 and 14, the rights to leave, return and seek asylum. On our panel today, at the very far right, Petra Molnar is a lawyer and anthropologist specializing in border technologies. She's the author of The Walls Have Eyes, surviving migration in the age of artificial intelligence. Jamie Chai-Yuen Liu is a writer, lawyer and professor, to my right here. Her book Ghost Citizens examines the ways people are made foreign, stateless and not

kin. Last but not least is Rima Jamous in the middle, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative to Canada. So let's start with what's actually in these two articles. Article 13 states, everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state and everyone has the right to leave any country, including his or her own, and to return to his or her country. Those brackets were mine.

And the beginning of Article 14 states, everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. These are big topics and so relevant to today. I wondered maybe just to ease us into the conversation, if you could each think about the last 75 years or so, and paint a picture of a moment, a scene, an experience, a piece of history about the idea behind the right to leave,

return or seek refuge. Petra, I'll start with you and we'll go in order, please. Thank you so much, Nala, and thank you to all of you for coming. It's my first time at Stratford, so this is really exciting. Yay! I want to share a story with you from the US-Mexico frontier, because it is one of the sites where migration and unfortunately also border violence has been at the forefront for decades.

And I was really lucky because I worked very closely with a search and rescue group there that goes into the Sonora Desert to assist people who are exercising their internationally protected right to asylum to cross the border and seek refuge in the United States. And so we trekked for about three hours into the Sonora, which is so beautiful but so deadly. And we came upon a memorial site of a young man, Mr. Elias Alvarado. He was a young husband and father from Central America. And he unfortunately passed away mere kilometers away from a major highway.

A few days before, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they were planning to roll out RoboDogs, four-legged quadruped military-grade technology to join this global arsenal of border enforcement. And to me, that starkness between the life and death at the border and this cold, inhumane use of technology was one of the more surreal moments of my career. Borders have for a long time been a violent place, but they are now increasingly becoming more so through this kind of sharpening of exclusionary laws, policies that are increasingly draconian, and more and more interventions like technology that I think we all need to heed. Thank you so much, Petra. Rima.

Thank you, Nala, and thank you to all of you for welcoming us here to Stratford. It's an honour to be with all of you. I have had the privilege of serving in the United Nations for several years now, and there is not a week that goes by where we are not forced to reflect on the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the UN Refugee Convention and to see how that plays out in the life and times that we currently experience day to day. But I will take you to a trip I made to Libya some years ago and part of that visit was to a detention centre where we met hundreds of sub-Saharan African migrants and asylum seekers

who were making their way from the southern part of the continent or other locations in the continent and journeying north, trying to ultimately reach a coast where they could embark a very rickety, perilous type of unseaworthy vessel that would ferry them across the Mediterranean into what they hoped would be a safer, better life. And at that detention center, I had the opportunity to meet women,

some of whom had been victims of sexual and gender-based violence, some of whom were carrying or delivering babies in the near term that they couldn't identify the father of. I also met young children and it was those children who really shook me because I could see the potential for the women and the young girls to perhaps find refuge and safety somewhere else. But these young boys at the age of 12 and 13 and 14

already being filtered through a security prism and being viewed very much as a threat. And it really shook me to my core because I have a son myself to see that if they were really the ones who were going to be left behind. And seeing those young boys is something that keeps coming back to me in the work that I do.

Thank you so much for that, Reema. Jamie. Thank you, Nala. Thank you everyone for being here. It's also my first time in Stratford and I'm delighted to be in conversation with you. My work recently has centered around the issue of statelessness, people who don't have citizenship whatsoever. And I was in Malaysia 2018 doing field work there where I was talking to a lot of stateless people, advocates, their families about why is it that people who are in a country they consider their home don't have citizenship. But one of the stories that really bothered me when I was there was I met a young woman who was not from Malaysia, she was from Myanmar and many of you might already know

that Myanmar stripped citizenship from Rohingya people a number of years ago and that there is an ongoing genocide there of the Rohingya. Her family had left Myanmar and gone to Malaysia with the hope of using Malaysia as a pit stop to get elsewhere for refuge, for asylum, she told me that she has been in Malaysia for 20 years at the time when I met her, that she still doesn't have citizenship, she doesn't have refugee protection status in Malaysia. And one of the most disturbing things was that she talked about wanting to go back to Myanmar, the home that she came from,

how she's prevented from going home, which is one of the rights that we're talking about today. But more disturbingly for me is how the promise of this right has really fallen flat. She told me about the many efforts she had in going to NGOs, international organizations, to plead with embassies of various countries, lining up to try to get an entryway elsewhere where she would be welcomed. Malaysia is not party to Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and so they did not recognize. So she really was living her life in limbo.

And so the title of my book, Ghost Citizens, really documents that kind of experience of feeling administratively dead, of not being able to live your full life, of not having a future and really being in purgatory. Thank you very much. I'd like to start with the spirit and the wording of the articles at hand here, but because you have all presented cases

that are very much of today, I wonder, Rima, if I can come back to you just to give us a short synopsis of just how severe the problem of displacement and asylum seeking is in the world today. Every year in June, my organization, the UN Refugee Agency, publishes an annual report where we capture

global forced displacement. And for the last 12 years running, every single year we've had to report an increase. And today we find ourselves in a position where over 120 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes. It's hard to conceptualize what that is in real terms. First, it's a number of long-standing protracted conflicts.

And here I'm thinking of places like Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Ukraine most recently. And there are also new conflicts that have generated additional displacement. And here now I can reference places like Gaza and Sudan, very much off the radar for various reasons. And in many respects, a lot of these conflicts that are generating displacement and forcing people to flee their homes have been really neglected and overlooked

for quite a long time. And a very generous proportion of that 120 million are people who are internally displaced within the borders of their own countries they've had to flee to find safety and we find ourselves at this point where the number continues to grow but because of the global economic situation support for refugees asylum seekers in neighboring countries Which frankly is where most of them will end up those who cross an international border 75% of them will stay close to Those who cross an international border, 75%

of them will stay close to home because the goal is to go home. People are not trying to flee en masse to reach wealthy countries. They are staying close to home. But what we have now is a situation where host countries have disproportionately borne the responsibility of that, but the support isn't

coming through. And that means that people are living day to day, trying to find a way to feed their families, find safety and security, meet basic needs. And what happens is you create a situation where onward movements become almost inevitable because they can't sustain a basic life where they are. And so they move on to the next place.

And we're seeing the impact of that here in Canada, where we have reached record breaking numbers of asylum seekers here in this country. That really sets the stage for our conversation. Thank you to give us a sense of what's going on in this moment. This right goes back to the post World War II era where my agency was created with a limited mandate of three years to try and repatriate and resettle refugees coming out of World War II. And this many years on, we still exist and wish we did not, but it's primarily to ensure that the right to seek asylum, to seek safety outside of your home country,

if your life is threatened or you face persecution on the basis of very specific grounds in the Refugee Convention, that that right should continue to be promoted, respected and upheld. And sadly, it's being challenged, undermined and eroded in ways we never would have imagined. And oftentimes by the countries that are best resourced and most capable to ensure that the right is implemented and fully protected. Rima, staying with you, can you take us back to that year? I know you weren't there, but give us a sense. Thank you for saying that. But I wonder if you could explain what the context was that these two articles were imagined

and how that influenced the way it was imagined and written down on paper. Right. Well, I mean, take yourself back to the post World War II era in the early days, you had millions of refugees and displaced people who'd been driven from their homes, trying to find safety for their families. And once the war ended, many people found themselves outside of their home countries and without a proper status or protection.

And so the United Nations at the time created the agency with the mandate to try and repatriate people, get them back home in safety and indignity. And where that wasn't possible to have people integrated in the countries of asylum where they were, or resettled to third countries where they might begin a new life. And so you were in a situation where you really thought that, A, that goal was achievable, B, it could happen within a span of three years,

and C, you had a willingness on the part of member states in order to help make that a reality. Now, if you fast forward to today, what we actually have are numbers beyond comprehension, systems that don't necessarily find themselves equipped to meet the challenges of today. But also a number of countries have walked back those initial commitments or have chosen to selectively apply them depending on the conflict or the population that we're talking about. And we'll talk some more about these

contexts that you mentioned, but going back to the actual initial document, and actually, Patra, I'll come back to you. It was an aspirational document, but often it really is up to the nation-states. As you say, Jamie, it's Canada or other countries deciding who comes in, who leaves. What gets lost in putting that power in the hands of nation-states? Yeah, that's a really, really good point.

And this is something that is an ongoing criticism, perhaps, of just international law more broadly, that it is very aspirational, but then its actual practical implementation really is up to the way that different states decide to either bring it into our own domestic legislation or massage certain articles for their own political understandings or gains. And this is where I think having that contextual specificity around what's happening is really important because Canada deals with things very differently sometimes than the United States, than the European Union. And so this universality starts to break down a little bit.

And what we've been seeing over the decades since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first drafted is that the universality is not actually there. It is oftentimes a political project of exclusion, and it ultimately is about deciding who is welcome and who is not. So again, even though on paper every single person in this room has an internationally protected right to leave, to return, to seek asylum. But again, it really depends how that is interpreted in practice. And that is the difference between the aspirations of international law and the daily reality that we are in. Rima, I wonder if you could pick up from there and talk about where you see the biggest gap between what is written on paper and what is actually practiced in reality.

Sadly, there is a massive gulf between rights, duties and obligations that are on paper and sacrosanct and practice and implementation. I am one of those people who still believes that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Refugee Convention are relevant, that the articles contained in them are still valid. You know, you look specifically at the UN Security Council, now mandated to uphold and promote international peace and security, and you ask yourself, has the UN Security Council done that? No. And even when the highest international judicial authority

that we have, the International Court of Justice, has been very clear in rendering decisions that the UN Security Council is then supposed to take and implement or at least find practical ways to give them expression, that hasn't happened. And so one is really left with the conclusion that it isn't about the rights and the entitlements that we have in these documents. It's about the political will to enforce them. It's about holding states and actors accountable for violating the basic principles contained in them.

And until we get that part right, it doesn't matter what we write down. And we really need to think about that as a world, as a society. Does a body of 15 countries, five of which hold a permanent veto and can stamp out the will of the international community, is that still a body that speaks for us in the values that we hold so dear in these documents? And certainly it could be the subject of whole other discussion,

just the security council's role itself. But back to you, Petra, for a moment. I suppose the argument could be made that because the numbers are so astronomical, that it isn't a surprise that the dollars available for innovation is being spent on keeping people out, as opposed to keeping people in. But could you speak to that imbalance, just how much more we're spending, we, the world,

on keeping people out than keeping them in? You know, we're not just talking small numbers. We're talking about a multi-billion dollar border industrial complex, essentially, where you have private sector actors testing out very, very high risk technologies, interventions and policies, and also making a lot of money as a result. This private sector influence often exacerbating also the reasons why certain laws don't get passed or why certain decisions get made on the global stage through backdoor dealings that happen in places like Ottawa. It's perhaps no surprise that again, a whole industry has grown up around

keeping certain people away. All the while, freedom of movement very much continues for people who are of a particular ethnicity, of a particular class, particular social location. Travel is very easy for some of us, right, versus others. Why is it that, for example, a product like an iPhone can cross different borders and yet a person of a different background cannot, right? And just to illustrate the point, you mentioned RoboDogs at the beginning, which is just a concept that blows my mind. But can you give another example of

the kind of technology that's being deployed at the border that maybe most of us aren't even aware of? We really are talking about a whole host of border management technologies here, so things like drones, but also artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making that can prevent a person from being able to even get a visa to come to Canada. And even more kind of draconian or experimental technologies, AI lie detectors have been piloted in the European Union, different types of facial recognition surveillance,

that is something very commonly used, for example, in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank. There's all sorts of uses of tech again that are used, oftentimes without a lot of law and a lot of public accountability. They become normalized and then proliferate to the border. But I would say, yeah, the robo-dogs, that is pretty dark stuff. Jamie, can you speak to kind of the starkest, you've given one already, the Canadian context

of the starkest example you see about the gap between what's written on paper and what's actually practiced in reality, maybe on the global stage rather than Canada too? Yeah, I guess I would say from my point of view, I really appreciate how Rima still has a lot of hope in the rights framework. And similarly with Petra, the way that she's been talking, maybe it's my age showing, but I have a lot more skepticism as to the role in which rights can play, riffing off of what Rima was saying,

in that it really rests with the implementation. But, you know, my time in Malaysia really showed me that the Universal Declaration of Rights and rights frameworks themselves are a Western concept that was never adopted properly in a large portion of the world. Malaysia, for example, is not a party to the Refugee Convention or to all of the provisions or articles in the Universal Declaration of Rights. And so it was very important for me to see that many parts of the world did not take up this Western notion of rights. But having said that, the Western world also falls flat in terms of how it implements it, as Rima said. One of the ways in which

I think this is very stark is that every time my work as a lawyer, every time I have a client that says, well, I have this right, why can't I put this forward? Especially when it comes to the Canada-U.S. border recently with the Safe Third Country Agreement. Why isn't it that my right to claim asylum at the border, it can't be made? And one of the things that I say is that, well, that's because states like Canada, even though it's a Western state that adheres to this right seemingly, will say, well, we also have the prerogative right to say who can come in, who can stay, and we have that ultimate veto power.

And so the starkest contrast is just even at the borders. And some of these decisions, as Petra said, are invisible. They're hard to contest. As a lawyer, how do you say, we want to question the way that the government has treated this person in this venue? The government's become very adept at hiding and interacting with people in ways that are hard to contest. I was reading an academic paper this morning that was handed to me and the assertion

was because the UDHR, now you know it's not the only mechanism where displaced people are concerned, but because it's not enforceable and and in fact, it is routinely ignored in terms of the rights that are contained within it, that really it is a failure. Is that going too far, Rima? Is that too strong a word for what it is? I don't think that the effort to put down on paper the aspirational rights, obligations, and duties of individuals and member states. I don't think that's something that was done in vain and I don't think it lacks value now.

I do think we are at a moment though where average people are asking about the value of these things. If you cannot enforce them, what does it matter what you write down on paper? I mean we're seeing today in places like Gaza, in places like Sudan, every red line crossed and recrossed on a daily basis. As a UN staff member, I'm watching in shock and horror, having served and lived in Gaza at the beginning

of my career, and my husband was a long time UNRWA staff member, UNRWA being obliterated right before our eyes, the compound he went to work to every single day ground to dust just in the last week. 200 of my colleagues killed in cold blood, many of them with their families, UN schools and shelters being deliberately attacked and flattened. I'm watching all of this and I'm asking and questioning, what does my organization stand for? How can we stop this?

We have all of these tools, but at the end of the day, it really comes down to member states and their implementation and enforcement of these rules. Sorry, go ahead, Nihal. I was just gonna say, can you pick up from that and specifically address the rights to leave, the right to return and seek asylum in the context of Gaza since you're there. So this is a really tough one. I work for the UN Refugee Agency. We are not mandated to work on this issue. I don't want the mandate to work on

this issue because my mandate kicks in when people leave their home country. And for those of you familiar with the history of this conflict, you know that ethnic cleansing and forcing people to leave their homes has been an instrumental part of the history and has brought us in some respects to where we are today. So it's a real struggle and one that within UNHCR we are reckoning with as we try to support our colleagues at ANRA, calling for the right to leave your home country and seek asylum, so to cross that border into Egypt and try and find safety there, balancing that right with the reality that we know that if people do leave, they will never go back

and they will never be permitted to go back. So that, I mean, even within these two sets of rights and duties that we have, we find ourselves trying to find the right place and to call for the right things, knowing what the political realities are versus what those rights entail. Jamie, go ahead. I think an important aspect of this that's common to all of these movements of people is how much is at risk.

People are making dangerous journeys to try to cross undetected. And people have died trying to do that. People have lost limbs and fingers and harm has come to them because of frost bite and other dangerous journeys. The common theme I see through all this is that when these rights are not allowed to breathe and give those people the freedom to do what we want to happen in these articles. It really is a life and death matter. And I'm not saying this flippantly or lightly.

When we, as a community, are watching our state governments make these decisions to make it more difficult for people to exercise these rights, what's the cost of this? Recently, we've seen a whole slew of different crises that have generated some quasi innovative but ad hoc approaches on the government's part to bring people over here. For example, the recent resettlement program from Syria, temporary permits for

Ukrainians, but also a very jarring example is the Gaza special measures program. And I'll just say right here, right now, that that program has been an utter and absolute failure. To date, zero people have come through this program and this crisis has been going on for the last eight to nine months. There is an ongoing genocide there. And when I talk to lawyers who are engaged with clients speaking on WhatsApp through very shaky internet or phone lines, it is heartbreaking to hear that people have died,

waiting to hear how these applications are processed to get a code, trying to figure out how the Canadian government is going to help them to get out of Gaza in order to benefit from this program. So again, I just want to say zero people have come through this program. Now, there are people who have been able to leave Gaza and come to Canada, but through other creative means, something that is not being developed by the Canadian government specific to this issue. And so when I think about how we've dealt with this in a domestic level, how Canada is doing its part, it really depends. In some cases, it's been doing a really fantastic job and others a very abysmal job.

And we really should be ensuring that we keep our government to task when it comes to these kinds of examples. Petra, you've got, I know, a thousand examples. I'm wondering if you could speak specifically to the example of what you call a digital prison in Greece. Yeah, I mean, this is something that we saw my team and I when I was in Greece for a few years, a direct example of how, again, border practices are being changed through the use of new tools like technologies. So what we've seen, for example, in places like Greece that have been housing people on the move for many years is this rise of essentially open air prison camps or a brand new refugee camp, if you will, that is now kitted out with all sorts of technology. Talking biometrics at the door, drone surveillance. At one point,

there was even a pilot project for the Greek border guards to wear virtual reality glasses to augment their reality and beam information to a control center in Athens. But one of the most shocking things that I remember really struck me was when the first camp was opened on Samos, one of the islands. Again, with all this technology, millions of euros spent on this, two weeks before opening, this camp did not have running water. And to me, this again highlights a broader question here whose priorities take precedence when we look at how migration is being experienced. And I know we've spent a lot of time talking about states and state action,

but again I think the private sector is very very important to talk about here too. Not just in terms of it being a major actor in making a lot of this technology, but also setting the agenda and saying, you know what, if people on the move are quote-unquote a problem to be solved, we have the perfect solution for you. And that solution is drones, robo-dogs, refugee camps with biometrics, and not actually thinking about how we can strengthen the asylum system and pour even a fraction of this money into legal services, psychosocial support, getting people out of Gaza. Again, think of what we could do with this amazing amount of resources that's being wasted on tools that are harming and killing people.

harming and killing people. and its significance for the future. You can hear ideas wherever you get your podcasts and on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America, on U.S. Public Radio and Sirius XM, in Australia, on ABC Radio National and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also hear us on the CBC News app. I'm Nama Ayed. Louis' classic will mesmerize the whole family. Don't miss this epic adventure. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This season at the Shaw Festival. For tickets, go to shawfest.com. Hey, how's it going?

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When debts got you, you've got us. Give credit counseling society a call today. Visit nomordebs.org. In today's panel discussion, we've been talking about articles 13 and 14, the rights to leave, to return and to seek asylum. On our panel today, lawyer and associate director of York University's Refugee Law Lab at Osgoode Hall Law School, Petra Molnar, immigration and refugee lawyer and assistant professor of law at the University of Ottawa, Jamie Chayon Liu, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative to Canada, Rima

Jammous. I wonder if each of you could address this question. You've mentioned so many different factors, but what do you think will be the major challenge to implementing at least some of these rights as we go forward? I imagine some of them are exactly the same kinds of things that are holding us back today. So, Petra, start with you and then go across. I think a major challenge is dehumanization.

The fact that we've lost the plot on the fact that there are people at the center of this conversation. But what drives that, do you think? Politics. This is something that we see in Canada, but in the United States, in the EU, in other parts of the world as well. This exclusionary thinking and this division between, again, those who are welcome and those who are the ultimate other. And if that is the logic that underpins global border policies, it makes sense why we would see an erosion of universal rights, why we would see this incursion of violent technology, this techno-racism that we've really been experiencing, I think, across different borders around the world.

And I think it stems, again, from the fact that we don't see each other as human anymore. And that is something that we need to change. The fact that, again, there are people, families, who are not only exercising their internationally protected right to move, but are also not that different from you and I. What about climate change, Rima or Jamie? What about that as a factor? I mean, even if you managed to get the Security Council to act with a unity of purpose

and be able to address root causes and have meaningful, durable peace solutions to some of the conflicts around the world that are propelling people to move, even if you manage to fix that, which I don't think is going to be an easy one to take on, climate change is going to continue driving numbers and driving

them in a way we've never seen before. And I think it's important to acknowledge here that it's not that I think that every government official is sitting in a closed room trying to craft the most exclusionary policies that they can. I do think they're struggling to reckon with these kinds of movements, for good or bad. And I think that we need to shift away from policies of deterrence, recognizing that they're a failure. Because let's face it, when you are desperate, if you can't feed your child, if you cannot protect your child, there is not a person in this room who would not fight to the death and do everything possible, including moving their family

across the border or getting on a boat to protect their children. That's what we do. And so we know people will continue to be forced to leave their homes because we can't fix the problems that so far have caused people to flee. And as a result of that, we need to wise up and accept that deterrence doesn't work. And instead, let's take the systems and accept that deterrence doesn't work. And instead, let's take the systems that we have, let's reinforce them, let's better equip them to deal with these flows of people,

which means giving people that internationally protected right to file an asylum claim, have it heard, have it determined, and where someone is not found to be a legitimate asylum seeker, send them back. And that has been a huge problem. And I'm not advocating now mass deportations or anything of the sort, and I don't want anyone to hear that in my comment, but what I am saying is that that's a place and a part of the system that isn't working properly. It's not working properly in Europe, it's not working properly in Canada. And so what ends up happening is that the overwhelming majority who are legitimate asylum seekers and refugees, and I use that word very cautiously, those people are lumped in with everybody else and we stop seeing the

forest for the trees. And so you need an effective system and you can't keep responding in emergency mode and pretending that the numbers are not going to come. They're coming and they're not stopping. And I think the last two years in Canada really bear that out. Every time the government has tried and pivoted and closed a border or changed a policy, the number keeps climbing.

And so we need to accept that they're going to come and let's be prepared for it. And the argument is exactly that, that the systems are overwhelmed. And so what is an effective system given that situation? I know you can't solve it for every country, but what is your advice when you have these conversations of how to deal with the fact that it is such an overwhelming problem?

Yeah, and this is a conversation I've been having with government counterparts in Ottawa for the last couple of years. It's that, please Canada, keep your gold standard with all of its flaws, because there's always room for improvement But Canada still has a refugee status determination process in this country that is laudable That is based on strong principles and that largely functions the way it should It's now being overwhelmed by the numbers that we're seeing in Canada But that can be fixed with minor tweaks and we've been presenting the Canadian government with options.

Let's have a look at what Germany is doing. Let's see what Sweden or Switzerland are doing. Similar systems, similar numbers. How can we make it better? And really, the lesson there is the system is strong, it functions, but Canada, it has the capacity and the resilience to meet the challenge before it. And I fear that all of the money being used in emergency response to put people up in expensive hotels and to address in a very stopgap kind of way the problem that we know

that will continue, it's ineffective, it's expensive, and it's not fit for purpose for the long term. So there are fixes and it can be done. Jamie, just back to the original question I asked, which is what you think would be some of the, one of the major challenges in implementing these rights going forward. Also, I'm gonna put it back on all of you here today.

You obviously are very interested in this topic. And I guess I would say that all of us have a role in letting our elected officials know that you care, because I think they are responsive. They do respond to the letters, the emails, the calls that you may put forward to your member of parliament and just to say that you care about this issue that you want to see more action taken on specific things like whether or not we're actually helping to bring people from Gaza for example. Are we actually being attentive and careful enough in the ways that we

attend to the processing of these kinds of applications? If you feel unsure or don't feel you have a full grasp of the understanding of these things, there are resources out there to read. And I invite you to be critical of what you read as well in mainstream newspapers and what you hear on TV or the radio and to try to broaden the sources from which you read the material about what's going on overseas, and to use this as a way to engage. Because I think what is needed is the government

to be pushed by its members of the community. And I invite you to join us in doing that. To the extent that each of you believes that what's written on paper makes a difference, I wonder if we could also do a round with each of you. If you had an opportunity to be at a table where those two articles are being rewritten, how would you do it? What would you add?

What word would you take out or what would you do with it? Petra? Ah, that's a good question. I mean, I'm a lawyer, but I'm a reluctant lawyer. So sometimes I'm like, you know, going back to the source documents is an interesting thought exercise, because, you know, I think when you read them, and I was just taking a look at them this morning, again, at first blush, they seem sufficient, right? They're very broad. They again seem universally applicable.

So I don't know if I would necessarily change anything in the actual text, but rather about the conversations that have to happen afterwards and the kind of implementation of the articles in domestic legislation and the kind of education, as Jamie was talking about, that goes along with having these universal rights. I think that's what I would focus on. Reba? I think I would talk to state officials gathered around a table

like I would talk to my children. And I would talk to state officials gathered around a table like I would talk to my children. And I would say to them, if you do not do this, this is the consequence. And be very clear on what a lack of respect and implementation means. And find concrete ways to ensure that states are held accountable for failing to live up to those obligations. Knowing that that is probably pretty hard to achieve, I would say in the alternative, maybe attaching an annex to the current document we have, saying, you know, spelling out methods and means to pursue implementation and really try as much as possible to hold their feet to the fire and make sure that domestic systems are in place to chase up that accountability.

Jamie? I guess I would add one thing in many of the human rights documents they always have this caveat that the state keeps its prerogative to decide who enters and who leaves and I guess I would take that away. Right? The states have fought very hard. They're very sneaky. They say, yeah, you can have these rights, but then they add this little thing saying, but... So who decides then in that case?

In that case, then we have to be permissive. And this will generate a responsibility, an obligation to attend to a very careful conversation we have with people who are knocking at our door. So if I could be so bold, I would take that completely away, even though states would never agree to it today, then let the pieces fall. Two more questions before we go to audience questions.

One is, what do you think we can learn from the struggle over the rights to leave, return and seek asylum about what it means to achieve justice today? How would you answer that, Jamie? about what it means to achieve justice today? How would you answer that, Jamie? I guess I would say that it's very apparent to me that there is a power imbalance, right? That even though you can say you have these rights, ultimately there are structures in place

where someone is ultimately making a decision about your life and about the course of your future. And that's a very scary notion. Some of us take that for granted because we will apply for a new passport and it will seemingly be a very benign thing. The most annoying thing is waiting in line. But for others that waiting in that whole process is life-changing. And so I guess I would say it's been eye-opening to see that power imbalance.

And how do we even the scales, so to speak. And I think that it means all of us attending to that. Rima? I think fundamentally it just comes down to asking ourselves what kind of world we want to be. Jamie alluded earlier to these special measures programs that have been introduced by Canada over the last couple of years.

This is Canada trying to deal with a world in which global force displacement is becoming a much bigger issue and how can Canada do its part. And I think the most recent example of an open door policy was Ukraine, where we issued close to a million visas to Ukrainians. Not all of those people have come. They may still well do, but we didn't place a cap on that.

We kept it open-ended. And we have since introduced similar programs for different populations. And I fear when I see the massive disparity in the number and the support and the entitlements provided to a community like Ukrainians who deserve to be supported in this critical time. But when you measure up close to a million next to about 11,000 spots that we gave to people from the Americas, and that was sort of the quid pro quo with closing the border

under the Safe Third Country Agreement. So a million, 11,000 for the Americas, and then you had Sudan, which was about roughly 3,000 and change, and then you had Gaza, which was a thousand initially. An application which I'm told by practicing refugee lawyers, they've never seen in the history of this country. And it's blatantly racist in the questions that it asks and is designed to exclude rather than include. So I think what I would say, and this has been my plea, is try and

find a measure of equity there. Try and find a way to respond to crises globally without deciding on the basis of nationality or ethnicity who is deserving of protection, because that inequity reverberates. People here in Canada see it, diaspora communities feel it, and it almost draws people to the inevitable conclusion that there is a racial hierarchy here, and some people are deserving of protections and others less so. Others we have to fear. They're

not as human as we are. Their pain, their protection needs are not as important as the rest. So I would say that if you want to ensure justice as a fundamental component of whatever system we have going forward, let's try and be equitable in the way we do it. A quick add, Petra? Just to add quickly, it makes me think of the interconnectedness of a lot of these issues that we're talking about and what's happening in a place like Kashmir actually does have connections to Palestine and Mexico. And thinking about it from a broader perspective of how power differentials are being experienced on a global scale. And also the fact that we need to talk about the root causes of displacement and war and conflict and why people are forced to move.

I think this is perhaps a theme that has come out of all of our comments. We sometimes forget the foundational idea that most people don't want to be refugees. It is a result oftentimes also of Western imperialism and warmongering in so many places around the world and we just cannot lose sight of that. So now for your questions, which often are sometimes better than ours, and I'd like to treat it as a lightning round. Here's one to Rima. In your time with UNHCR, how have you seen the conversation on migration change globally and in Canada? I think conversations that were once possible about supporting people, providing humanitarian assistance, giving them a pathway to a better future, I think that space is shrinking, not just in Canada, but globally.

And part of the reason why is because countries that are amongst the best resourced and most wealthy have taken measures to close their door and roll back their commitments under the Refugee Convention. And when the big guys with the deep pockets do it, it makes it a lot harder for us to persuade big host countries that are low and middle income and already grappling with their own issues. It makes it harder for us to persuade them that they

should do the right thing for the right reasons. Okay, thank you. Jamie, why has the Gaza program in Canada failed? Rima alluded to this. It's the application process. They had ridiculous criteria, like you have to be in Gaza this. It's the application process. They had ridiculous criteria like you have to be in Gaza at the time of the application, but of course some people have left for safety reasons. These people are not told how to get out of Gaza or not given any assistance.

And sometimes they don't have the resources or the wherewithal to leave Gaza. That really rests with political will about how to create a program that would really help people because people are leaving and people are getting to Canada but in different ways. Okay. Petra, how do pushbacks affect these rights? Cases where people are pushed back at sea or at land to prevent them from claiming asylum and the person is asking for an example from your travels. Excellent question. So a pushback is when a person who is coming into a territory is either forcibly prevented from entering

or sometimes intercepted and then removed back to the place that they are escaping. What has been in the news a lot are maritime pushbacks. This is, for example, happening in the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas, where a boat of people on the move is entering European territory and they are intercepted by either a coast guard of a member state. Sometimes they literally make waves to push the boat out of European territory so that they don't have to even think about the asylum processes that would technically kick in once

you're in European territory. And sometimes there's even towbacks, towing people back towards Libya and other spaces like that. Again, blatantly illegal under international law, and yet it happens. And very dangerous. And very dangerous. People have died. There was a massive shipwreck off the coast of Pilos in Greece

last year where I think 600 people passed away as a result of a pushback operation gone wrong and inaction instead of maritime rescue and search and rescue operations. One significant change since this article was drafted is the international persecution of LGBTQ people and the recognition of that as being a driver of people leaving the places where they live the attempts to find safe asylum. So Jamie could you speak to just how developed that effort is? And I know Canada has had a role in this.

Yeah, I would say Canada is a leader in this. For example, in the Inland Protection System, we do recognize within this broader refugee definition in law that you could be recognized as a refugee for being persecuted for being LGBTQ and for the very laws or practices that are taking place in your home country. And then on a wider scale I've seen some really amazing resettlement efforts created by citizens themselves who are bringing individuals from various countries and sponsoring them as refugees. So there is a very vibrant community in Canada doing that work.

And that is a very positive outcome to what these rights have triggered people in terms of their responsibility and obligations. Yeah. And that actually raises one question I'd never got to. Are there any arenas in which you think positive developments are being made and realizing and safeguarding some of these rights that we're actually getting it right in some contexts. Rima or Petra, are there any that come to mind? I think the solidarity element, yeah. Like people just showing up for one another in creative ways

across lived experience in spaces that are so surprising. Rima, anything? I agree with that. Here in Canada, it's, I think, a tremendous point of pride that this country invented Canada, it's, I think, a tremendous point of pride that this country invented the community sponsorship model, recognizing anybody can write a check and off you go, donate to a cause which is worthy and valuable in and of itself, but to open your home, to commit to taking people who are completely different from

you, from a corner of the world you may know nothing about and caring for these people on their journey and trying to help them establish a new life, I think that is one of the most beautiful, concrete expressions of human solidarity. I thought maybe I'd give each of you a chance to globally answer one question that stems out of every single one of these questions. What about the argument that refugees are a significant drain on resources, housing, jobs and education, and healthcare in Canada? What about the countries that say, why should it be my problem? We'll start with you, Petra.

Yeah, why should it be our problem? I think again, we've forgotten how much of a knife balance it really is when it comes to either safety or conflict. Things can shift drastically. Not to be a pessimist or a fear monger. We are all interconnected in this world and actually it's not as far-fetched as we would like to think that we might be facing a similar situation to people who are on the move today. And if that is the starting point, then again, that perhaps addresses some of the dehumanization,

the kind of arm's length approaches that people take to immigration and refugee issues, because it's happening over there to people who look different from me and therefore I don't feel a connection to this at all. But rather, this is a human problem, also a human created issue. Okay, Rima. So we think about this quite frequently because we have to face the Canadian public and decision makers and provide them with reasons why this is important. We actually went back to Stats Canada census data and we examined the contributions of

refugees to this country by different metrics. The unbelievably positive picture showed that refugees contribute very substantially. They pay far more in income tax than they ever receive on arrival assistance. They are homeowners at the same rates of Canadians. They enter professions and quickly rise to the middle class. One of my favorites, people, children who come here as refugees graduate from post-secondary institutions in this country at a higher rate

than native born Canadians. And if you don't even believe that you should do the right thing for the right reasons, enlightened self-interest tells you that in a place with a very low population that is aging, if you want to have a family physician or a pharmacist or a teacher in your school, migration is going to be the cornerstone of the longevity of this country and many other countries around the world.

I'll take it to a personal level. So my children, their great grandparents were refugees that came during the 60s. My dad was stateless and migrated because he had no choice. If Canada had not opened its doors, I cannot tell you where I would be today. I went back to Malaysia in 2018 to interview people and it was an out of body experience to see where my life could have been if Canada did not open its doors. And I can't believe I'm sitting next to these experts in Nala'a'iyat. My dad can't believe it. We're all migrants at some point on Indigenous lands.

And for us to say we can't afford to do this or we simply don't have the resources seems really out of this world to me given the immense privilege that I live with today. And the work that I do today is because I can't forget where my children's ancestors came from and why they had to migrate and why they were forced to move from both sides of their family. They've had to make unbearable choices

and were never able to return to their homes. And their home is here now. And it's only fair that we move it forward and do our share now to help people who are in those same situations. Jamie, Rima and Patra, really, really thought-provoking and thank you. Thank you so much for your thoughts today. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your thoughts today. Really appreciate it. On ideas, you've been listening to the rights to leave, return and seek asylum. It's the third part of our series, Brave New Worlds, recorded at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Ideas at Stratford is produced by Philip Coulter and Pauline Holdsworth. Special thanks to Julie Miles, Gregory McLaughlin, Renata Hanson, Harper Charlton, James Hyatt, Mira Henderson, Kendallyn Bishop, Madeline Grogan, and the entire Stratford Festival team. For ideas, our technical producer is Danielle Duval, the web producer is Lisa Ayuso,

senior producer Nicola Lukcic. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of Ideas. And I'm Nala Ayed. Thank you so much for being here, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For more CBC podcasts go to cbc.ca slash podcasts