Nova Scotia joins B.C. in refusing to hold immigration detainees in provincial jails

A campaign to end detention of migrants in provincial jails is gaining momentum after a second province decided to stop holding immigration detainees for the federal government in its facilities.

Nova Scotia is joining British Columbia and has given Ottawa 12 months’ notice to cancel its immigration detention agreement with the Canada Border Services Agency.

On Tuesday, the Nova Scotia Department of Justice confirmed that the province will no longer hold individuals who are detained solely for violating the immigration law when the contract ends on Aug. 8, 2023. Officials are working on a plan to wind down the practice.

“Across the Atlantic provinces and throughout the country, migrants and refugee claimants too frequently face abusive, open-ended immigration detention — especially traumatic for those fleeing war or persecution in search of a safe haven,” said Julie Chamagne, executive director of the Halifax Refugee Clinic.

“Nova Scotia’s decision is an important step forward for human rights. We call on the federal government to enact robust legislative and regulatory changes to stop rights violations in this system across the country.”

Last year, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International launched the joint campaign to lobby provinces and territories to end the practice of holding immigration detainees alongside dangerous criminals in jails.

A campaign is currently underway in Ontario, which holds more than half of all immigration detainees in Canada.

In 2019-20, before the pandemic, more than 8,800 migrants were detained in Canada — 19 per cent in a provincial facility. In 2020-21, the number dropped to 1,605, with 40 per cent held in a provincial jail, as public health concerns amid the pandemic prompted the release of detainees who posed little risk to the public.

B.C. had the second most immigration detainees of all provinces: 1,470 in 2019 and 310 in 2020. Nova Scotia only held 14 inmates for the border agency in each of those two years.

“One is too many,” said Chamagne. “There is no legal limit on immigration detention. So you don’t know how long you’re going to be held. And that really is contrary to our values as Canadians.

“I really hope it will have a domino effect.”

Canada’s immigration detention system came under fire a few years ago after several detainees died in custody. Advocates are particularly concerned about the use of provincial prisons to hold migrants with convicts — often over months and in some cases, years — on administrative grounds, pending removals from Canada.

Across the country, more than 70 correctional facilities are used to hold federal immigration detainees who are deemed a flight risk or a safety threat to the public or to themselves.

“As a result of Nova Scotia’s decision, immigration detainees will soon be spared the corrosive, human rights-impairing conditions of the province’s jails, where solitary confinement, mass lockdowns and other forms of routine institutional violence have only intensified since the start of the pandemic,” said Sheila Wildeman, co-chair of East Coast Prison Justice Society and a Dalhousie University law professor.

“We call on the federal government to use the resources devoted to maintaining this brutal practice to instead invest in sustainable immigration settlement supports in the community.”

The local campaign, initiated in April, mobilized a letter-writing campaign to Premier Tim Houston’s Conservative government.

Border officials have invested in new and upgraded immigration holding centres, including new facilities in B.C. in 2020 and in Montreal this year, to reduce reliance on provincial jails.

A spokesperson for the border agency has said officials will continue to work with provincial partners to maintain community safety and the integrity of the immigration program and to ensure immigration detainees are treated in a dignified and humane way.

Nicholas Keung is a Toronto-based reporter covering immigration for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @nkeung