According to internal documents obtained by The Canadian Press, nearly one in six people who attended a major AIDS conference in Montreal last year applied for refugee status after the event.
The documents also highlight the fact that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had difficulty working with the event’s organizer, the International AIDS Society, to avoid a massive visa denial.
When the conference kicked off in the metropolis last July, dozens of delegates from Africa and Asia were denied visas or never received a response to their requests. On the Palais des Congrès stage, speakers even accused Ottawa of racism and even said that international gatherings should no longer be held in Canada.
Documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act show that 1,020 visa applications for the conference were denied, or 36% of them. Another 10% had not yet been processed by the end of the event.
Canada eventually issued 1,638 visas for the conference. The documents show that at least 251 people, about 15% of the participants, applied for asylum after entering Canada.
According to Robert Blanshay, a Toronto-based immigration attorney, one of the few times persecuted people can come to Canada safely is at a convention or sporting event.
“I’m not at all surprised that there were some participants who chose not to return home and instead applied for refugee status,” he said.
“Good for her. If that was her only option to apply for asylum in another country, then so be it. »
complex process
In an interview, Mr. Blanshay recalled that obtaining a temporary visa or refugee status to enter Canada is not always easy.
Visa applications are often denied unless an applicant clearly demonstrates that they have reasons for returning to their country of origin after staying on Canadian soil, such as: B. Stable employment, financial savings and family ties.
With regard to the AIDS conference, Ottawa also rejected 83.5% of visa applications from Nepal, 55.8% from Nigeria, 53.6% from Pakistan and more than 40% from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Ghana.
An internal report last November assessing the Department of Immigration’s handling of the conference said that the visa situation “has highlighted the need for better coordination in light of major events, to ensure that all stakeholders are involved from the outset and remain in constant and detailed communication.”
The report concluded that there had been some shortcomings in the department’s administration, including a problem with the computer system that made it difficult for some applicants to enter the event code, which was used to add event attendees to a database.
shared guilt
However, the internal report placed much of the blame on the organizers of the event. The Canadian press attempted to get a response from the International AIDS Society but received no response before publication.
Six weeks before the conference, the document said, organizers provided a list of 6,609 participants but failed to provide key information to identify their visa applications, including dates of birth and case numbers.
About two weeks later, immigration authorities asked for a list of priority dignitaries, to which organizers responded with a list of 4,200 names.
Eventually, the department secured a shortlist of 150 priority entrants.
“The organizers repeatedly questioned the denials and requested detailed information on each individual case,” the report said.
Although the application deadline had been set at two weeks before the start of the event, the Ministry continued to receive new applications a few days before the conference.
Ultimately, the report says, ministry teams have been hampered by an increase in the number of special events and “various other processing priorities.” The authors suggested that the Ministry should set up a team specifically for special events.
For its part, the ministry has promised to insist that organizers provide more complete guest lists with visa application numbers two months before the congresses.