Toronto / April 2026
The long- awaited Ontario Budget has been tabled. Our immigrant and refugee serving sector, underfunded for a number of years, will need to wait a couple of more weeks for the expenditure estimates before we know whether the programs that support newcomers’ settlement and integration- language training, employment supports, investing in women’s futures, preventing and addressing gender-based violence and intimate partner violence will be adequately funded.
I am working on being optimistic about this budget given the massive deficit that it posted. But recent history reminds me that the deficits are due in part to the elimination of various fees which contributed to our provincial coffers while doing some good. Such as a small payment for emissions test (no longer done). The ‘sin’ taxes from alcohol sales – revenue that now goes to corner stores and gas station kiosks instead of paying for education, health or social services for those made vulnerable by an uncaring economic system. (The Budget commits $407 million over 3 years for community organizations and services).
The demands for services have not diminished but the funding support to the sector in Ontario has been significantly eroded given the significant federal government cuts to social programs, including immigrant and refugee (re)settlement and support services.
The irony (I really want to type violence) of this weekend is really on the nose. Easter, Passover, recent Ramadan observances and Refugee Rights Day. The three Abrahamic religions brought us a mix of solemnity and celebration. These commemorations, regardless of one’s faith or absence of faith, remind us of our humanity and our responsibility for each other and for our world. This period from the Spring Equinox to now embodies the principle of Ubuntu - I am because you are.
It is the preparation for observing the forty-first anniversary of Refugee Rights Day, a couple of weeks after our federal parliament adopted the egregious and regressive Bill C-12, that really brought the irony home.
In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada established that asylum seekers who are physically present in Canada are entitled to fundamental justice, including an oral hearing under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court affirmed that the term ‘everyone’ in the Charter, includes refugee claimants. We cannot stress enough the importance of the right to an oral hearing. The court’s ruling determined that “refugees (claimants) have the right to a fair, in-person hearing to present their case and challenge the evidence against them when their credibility is in question”. Bill C-12 erases this fundamental charter right. This is wrong and we are trusting the Supreme Court of Canada – once a case against the government’s C-12 reaches there- to uphold the belief that everyone resident in Canada, regardless of citizenship status has a right to fundamental justice. This fight isn’t over. We know that some progressive Senators worked hard to amend the Bill with little success. Cross-sectoral civil society organizations and their representatives met with MPs from across party lines, making strong arguments against this significant erosion of justice that makes a mockery of the 1985 Singh decision. Let’s pray that these arguments land and change minds and hearts.
As if that wasn’t enough, the government also chose this time of year to follow through on their cuts to refugee healthcare. The Interim Federal Health (IFH) program provides primary physical and mental health services and a few extended health – dental and vision care- to those seeking protection and asylum in Canada. By mandating that these people who are often in desperate situations, arriving with little to no possessions and while always willing, are often unable to work until a work permit is obtained and/or their physical and mental health allow, pay for part of their health care is unconscionable. And we know from working with Canadians living in deep poverty, that foregoing preventative and maintenance healthcare has a great personal health cost and significant financial costs to our healthcare emergency systems.
Let’s get beyond the irony and the complacency these seemingly unrelenting attacks on our sector can cause. At times like these it is tempting to go inside (our agencies and organizations) and focus on only what’s in front of us, blocking out the other broader policy issues. We cannot afford to do this. There is a common thread that connects it all – the almost 25% cut to federally funded immigrant and refugee (re)settlement services, legislation that erodes the rights of refugee claimants and program guidelines that reduces access to refugee healthcare. This is time for collective action on all fronts. And it has begun.
Our sector’s national organization, the Canadian Council for Refugees, has launched its public education and advocacy campaign to reverse the changes to the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP), among others like the Healthcare for All coalition and the Migrant Rights Network.
Service providing agencies and their umbrellas continue to look for ways to mitigate the fall-out from the significant cuts to services which is leading to high unemployment of workers who are primarily women, of immigrant/refugee background and often racialized. The major funder of the sector, IRCC is disallowing use of their funds to support separation payments. This is wrong. And we must get the Department of Finance, and the Treasury Board to suspend these terms and conditions in Contribution Agreements during this crisis period. I pray that those with influence in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) are listening. Ontario is awash with Liberal and Conservative MPs. Let us inform them of the issues and push them to support our call for employment fairness for their constituents. Let me conclude with this reminder:
Just like moons and like suns.
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll (we’ll) rise.
(Maya Angelou- Still I Rise)
In Solidarity