Canada Bill C-2 Raises Concerns Over Refugee Rights

(CANADA) — Canada introduced Bill C-2 as a border-and-security measure that drew sharp criticism from refugee and migrant-rights groups, which said it would sharply restrict access to refugee protection, especially for people entering from the United States and for people who had already spent more than a year in Canada.

The proposed changes touched several parts of the refugee system at once. Critics focused on a new one-year bar on some in-Canada claims, tighter limits on claims by people crossing from the United States between official ports of entry, a shift toward a paper-based risk review for people shut out of the full refugee process, broader cabinet power over immigration documents, and wider information-sharing with authorities.

At the center of the debate was access to the Immigration and Refugee Board, the tribunal that hears refugee claims. Refugee advocates said the bill would block many people from ever reaching that hearing stage, even if they later faced danger in their home countries.

One proposed rule would make a refugee claim ineligible if the person first arrived in Canada more than one year earlier, for arrivals after June 24, 2020. Under that approach, a person could be barred from having a claim heard by the Immigration and Refugee Board even if conditions in the home country changed after arrival and later became dangerous.

The Canadian Council for Refugees said that limit would operate as a lifetime-style bar in practice. The group said the measure was inconsistent with international refugee protection principles because it tied access to the claim process to when a person first arrived, rather than to the risk the person might face later.

Another disputed provision targeted people entering Canada from the United States outside official border crossings. Bill C-2 would sharply limit claims by people who crossed irregularly between ports of entry, and refugee groups said the existing 14-day exception would be removed under the proposal.

That change carried particular weight because it applied to a common route used by people seeking asylum from the United States side of the border. Amnesty International Canada said the bill would make it “virtually impossible” for most people entering Canada via the U.S. to have their refugee claim reviewed by the Immigration and Refugee Board.

People found ineligible under those rules would not necessarily be removed immediately. Instead, they could be directed into a pre-removal risk assessment, a different process that refugee advocates described as weaker than a full board hearing because it is paper-based and does not guarantee the same oral testimony, testing of evidence, or procedural protections.

That distinction between the two systems became one of the main legal and policy objections raised by critics. A hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board allows a claimant to present a case directly, while the pre-removal risk assessment relies on written material, and advocates said that difference could shape how risk is evaluated in practice.

Bill C-2 also proposed giving cabinet authority to cancel, suspend, or change immigration documents if doing so was considered in the “public interest.” The documents affected could include permanent resident visas, work permits, study permits, and other status documents, expanding government power well beyond refugee claims alone.

Refugee and migrant-rights groups said that authority created the risk of mass cancellations without individualized review. Their criticism centered not on a single document class but on the breadth of the proposed power, which reached across several categories of temporary and permanent immigration status.

Privacy concerns formed another strand of the opposition. The bill would broaden information-sharing authority across federal, provincial, territorial, and foreign entities, while also making private information more accessible to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Civil society groups said wider access to that information could chill access to services and expose migrants to enforcement risk. In their view, the issue was not limited to data transfer inside Canada, because the proposal also contemplated sharing with foreign entities, widening the circle of institutions able to receive personal information.

The federal government took a different position in the Department of Justice Charter Statement for Bill C-2. The statement said the minister did not identify any potential effects on Charter rights and freedoms, and it said the proposed ineligibility provisions would not cause immediate removal because affected people could still access a risk assessment before removal.

That official position drew a direct rebuttal from advocacy groups. The Canadian Council for Refugees said the bill would “seriously weaken refugee rights” and violate Canada’s Charter and international-law obligations, while Amnesty International Canada described it as an attack on the right to seek asylum.

Criticism of the bill did not rest on one clause alone. Refugee groups argued that the package worked by narrowing entry to the full refugee determination process, replacing oral hearings with a paper-based alternative for some people, and expanding state authority over status documents and personal information at the same time.

The dispute also turned on timing. Under the proposed one-year rule, a person’s first arrival date in Canada after June 24, 2020 could decide eligibility long after that entry, meaning later changes in country conditions would not restore access to a full hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Concerns about people coming from the United States stood out throughout the public debate over Bill C-2. Refugee-rights advocates said the combined effect of the irregular-entry restrictions and the end of the 14-day exception would shut off one of the few remaining pathways for many asylum seekers arriving from the United States.

Bill C-2 was introduced as a major border-and-security bill, but its refugee provisions did not remain confined to that initial package. More recent legislative and advocacy materials indicated that those provisions were later folded into Bill C-12, the “Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act.”

That later bill received royal assent in March 2026. By that stage, the refugee-rights concerns first raised around Bill C-2 had shifted with the legislation rather than disappearing, leaving the same objections attached to measures that advocacy groups said would weaken access to asylum protections for people in Canada and for people arriving from the United States.