How faster work permits could help ease Canada's refugee shelter crisis

The refugee housing crisis in Toronto is drawing attention to another challenge facing asylum seekers in Canada: how long it takes for them to get permission to work in this country.

Asylum seekers are allowed to get a job in Canada while their claim for refugee status is being assessed, but only if they've been issued a work permit.

Staff at agencies providing services to refugee claimants say their clients are typically waiting anywhere from several months to more than a year for work permits.

They say if the federal government can speed up the process, asylum seekers would be better able to support themselves and their families and potentially lessen the demand for shelter spaces that saw dozens of refugee claimants sleeping on the street in Toronto in recent weeks. 

"The federal government could make a policy decision to expedite review of these work permits so those folks can enter into the labour market and start on the path to building a really good life in Canada and taking care of themselves," said Surranna Sandy, chief executive officer of Skills For Change, a Toronto-based agency that provides employment and settlement services to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. 

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and Ontario Premier Doug Ford are joining the call to expedite work permits.

"One of the best ways to support refugees and asylum seekers for the long-term is by helping them find meaningful employment," Ford and Chow said in a joint statement this week. 

"We are urging the federal government to immediately dispatch dedicated resources on the ground to help refugees and asylum seekers complete paperwork and process their applications so that people arriving can begin to find good work in weeks rather than the years it can currently take." 

Sandy says the bulk of asylum seekers who come to her agency say they want to find a job as soon as possible. 

"There's an eagerness to work, to take care of themselves, to contribute. They just need a pathway, an expedited pathway to be able to do that," Sandy said in an interview.

"That would allow folks to get access to proper housing," she said. "It would reduce the burden that we have in the shelter system and the increased demands on the food banks." 

How can asylum seekers obtain work permits?

To qualify for a work permit, an asylum seeker must have made a claim for refugee status in Canada, provided their biometrics such as fingerprints and undergone a medical exam.

In addition, their claim must have been screened by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and found to merit referral to the Immigration and Refugee Board for a legal decision on granting refugee status. 

That screening process is typically responsible for the long waits, according to refugee advocates. 

Citing a renewed surge in refugee claims and critical delays in processing, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser brought in a new temporary policy last November to streamline work permit approvals for asylum seekers. 

"This bottleneck is preventing timely access to work permits for asylum claimants," said a notice posted on the IRCC website explaining the change.

Process recently 'streamlined': official

A federal government official says work permits are now being issued to refugee claimants much more quickly than they were last fall, in part as a result of a new online application portal, typically in six to eight days after the asylum seeker meets all the eligibility criteria.

"We've streamlined a lot of the process," said the government official, who spoke on condition they not be identified by name. "Our processing time is actually pretty good."

In the first five months after the online portal was launched last September, Canada granted more than 20,000 work permits to asylum claimants (12,000 of those in Quebec), an IRCC spokesperson told CBC News earlier this year. 

On Wednesday, CBC News requested current figures on refugee claimants awaiting work permits but IRCC officials did not provide any information by publication time.

Shortest wait still 3-4 months: advocate

Loly Rico, executive director of FCJ Refugee Centre in Toronto, says the shortest wait time she is seeing for asylum seekers to be issued work permits is still three to four months.

"We have cases that they came last year, they're still waiting for the work permit," said Rico in an interview. 

Both Rico and Sandy point out that Ukrainian refugees who arrived in Canada over the past year and a half did not face lengthy processing delays, but were given immediate access to services including the ability to work. Similarly, Syrian and Afghan refugees who were brought to Canada through government-sponsored resettlement programs had permission to work upon arrival.   

The discrepancy is wrapped up in the difference between resettled refugees (who are screened overseas then come to Canada with official approval) and asylum seekers (who arrive in Canada then make a claim for refugee status.)

The current labour market situation in Ontario — with nearly 300,000 job vacancies, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada —  is lending some heft to the calls for speedier work permits for refugee claimants. 

"We need to fill the 300,000 jobs," Ford said in answering questions from reporters on the refugee housing crisis during a news conference this week.

Addressing the federal government, he continued: "You have to step up, and you have to give them working permits. Shelter's number one, working permits are number two."