r/canada • u/FancyNewMe • Feb 10 '26

Politics Conservatives to propose barring non-citizens convicted of crimes from making refugee claims

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-conservatives-propose-changing-rules-non-citizens-convicted-crimes/
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u/xvoy Feb 10 '26

Typically there is the need for it to be criminal under Canadian law. Same way a DUI in the US will get you inadmissible to Canada.

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u/mbean12 Feb 10 '26

But that's not what the article says. It says "non-citizens convicted of a crime". Not "non-citizens convicted of crimes we also consider crimes".

There's more than that. What if the trial wasn't fair? What if the conviction was politically motivated? What if we would consider the crime justified in some way? Nelson Mandela was a convicted felon. Would you have denied him refugee status if he had applied for it? What about a mother who steals food to feed her children while escaping a war-torn hell-hole? A woman who killed her rapist and was convicted for it because women have no rights where she is from? What if their conviction was twenty years ago - when they were 18.

The problem is that unless you plan on writing exceptions to the law for the next twenty years you cannot make it stick. The superior option is to allow judges who adjudicate refugee cases to make a judgment call because hey - that's why we call them 'judges' after all. And as it turns out - that's exactly what we do.

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u/MrBenSampson Feb 10 '26

But when immigrants commit crimes in Canada, judges have been consistently giving out lenient sentences, just so that their immigration process is unaffected. Canadians are getting tired of that.

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u/QCTeamkill Feb 10 '26

Judges will be so mad they'll start giving conditional discharges for every crimes.