An explosion in global conflicts—in Ukraine, Haiti, the Middle East and Africa—has brought a record number of refugee claimants to Canada. Last year, for the first time, the number of refugees this country admitted exceeded 140,000. Roughly half arrived unexpectedly, on a plane, by car or on foot, and were processed through ports of entry.
Loly Rico, the founder of the FCJ Refugee Centre in Toronto, has spent decades working with refugees. In an insightful essay for Maclean’s, she describes what currently happens when a refugee shows up at, say, Pearson airport: they make a claim, Border Services agents interview them, direct them to the Red Cross’s intake office and send them off. If the Red Cross is closed, people sleep at the airport. And if the Red Cross is full, they go to shelters. But as we all saw last summer, shelters often don’t have beds themselves. It’s a mess.
In February, the federal government pledged $362 million to the provinces to house refugees. Rico has a dream for how that money should be spent: on the creation of full-service reception centres, centralized spaces with beds, food and other supports to help newcomers rebuild their lives. Her argument is so compelling it’s astonishing that such centres don’t yet exist. If the number of refugees arriving in Canada continues to grow, we’ll have no choice but to build them.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
