Manitoba government steps up to save local refugee service

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This article was published 29/09/2015 (3445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government says it will step up and assist a local non-profit group keep open a service that helps refugees fill out their refugee claim forms within the narrow 15-day window.

Premier Greg Selinger said his government will provide financial support for the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council’s paralegal service after it meets with the agency’s representatives to determine its needs.

“We said we’re going to sit down with them and work with them to find a solution,” Selinger told the Free Press on Tuesday night. “From what I read in your (Free Press) article, they need to get that processing done in a couple of weeks. We have to sit down with them and assess what their situation is and then find a solution. But we’re committed to finding a solution. We don’t want paperwork to be the reason why people can’t get safe haven.”

Selinger was referring to the story in Tuesday’s Free Press that highlighted the urgency of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council’s financial needs with the arrival of a group of asylum-seekers last weekend.

Executive director Rita Chahal said the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council has been able to keep the paralegal service operating by running a deficit but that cannot be sustained. The organization would have been forced to decide the future of the paralegal service at its board meeting next week and it didn’t look good until news of the government’s offer.

The service is officially called the In Canada Protection Program. It provides paralegal services for refugee claimants.

The interfaith council runs Welcome Place on Bannatyne Avenue that resettles and shelters government-assisted refugees. It used to shelter refugee claimants until the federal government ordered the agency to stop housing anyone but government-assisted refugees.

Since the service is still in place for now, Chahal said a file has been opened for Sahra Ali Ahmed and her son Amin, 6, who arrived in Canada on Saturday after being dropped off in North Dakota and walking through fields for six hours with three other Somali refugee claimants.

Chahal said organization has met with the province in the past and submitted proposals to make the province aware of their financial difficulties.

“We’re very glad that today they did come back and say they are looking at some options and we applaud the government for that,” said Chahal, who said she spoke with someone from the premier’s office earlier Tuesday.

“They let us know that they are considering several options, that they understand the challenges of the funding situation that we are in. What those options are, no one has told us anything but we welcome the opportunity to meet with the province, the premier or his designate, and look at some ways in which we can continue doing the work that we currently are delivering.”

Chahal said she would “clear my calendar” as soon as the premier’s office wants to meet.

Selinger said assistance for the paralegal program will come from the provincial government’s “envelope of resources” that has been earmarked for refugee supports of $1.2 million.

“I understand calls went out today so we expect we should be able to meet with them as early as this week. We’re ready as soon as they’re ready so I think it will happen very quickly,” Selinger said.

Chahal said her organization needs “a tremendous amount of help” — $200,000 to $250,000 annually — to keep the paralegal service in place and to restore services in the privately sponsored-refugee program, the second part of the In Canada Protection Program, which had to be cut to save the paralegal service.

There is only one paralegal counsel right now for refugee claimants. Once their refugee claims are determined, which will take a few days, asylum-seekers can receive housing and income assistance and interim health benefits.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca

— with files from Carol Sanders