Justice McDonald of Canada’s Federal Court issued a judgment this morning that struck down Canada’s ironically-named “Safe Third Country ” agreement with the US, under which refugees who travel through the US to seek asylum in Canada are turned back from our border. Under this arrangement, Canada pretends that the United States has a system of justice that conforms with international standards, and willingly participates in abuses that must offend any normal standard of decency.

We encourage you to read the judgment. Justice McDonald found that the agreement violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees “the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

The decision addressed three cases that were heard together, brought by people who left horrific conditions in different parts of the world and came to Canada via the US (a country with little interest in accepting refugees). Canada summarily handed them back to the Americans. The evidence of their treatment in their home countries and in the US is shocking.

As the evidence showed, when the US gets its hands on the refugees we send back under the agreement, they are imprisoned under the sub-human conditions we have all heard about under Donald Trump’s regime. They are punished (in violation of international law) for having sought refuge in Canada.

We trust that you share our sense of shame that our country willingly participated in this program, and our gratitude to Madam Justice McDonald for putting a stop to it. We hope and trust that our federal government will not seek to overturn this result on appeal.

by Jim Quail