Canada Should Emulate Britain’s Historic Refugee System Overhaul

Commentary

Britain’s dramatic, hard-nosed reforms to its asylum system demonstrate that civilized countries can put their citizens first without compromising on the essential Western values of dignity and fairness. At a time when Canada is rethinking our own immigration policies, we should meditate on Britain’s approach.

On Nov. 17, British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood delivered a speech to the House of Commons in which she declared that a major influx of asylum seekers—400,000 in four years—has “destabilized communities” and made the British Isles “a more divided place.”

The speech went on to outline a package of reforms, the central thrust being a plan to reorient the asylum system by “making refugee status temporary, not permanent.”

Asylum seekers will only be permitted to permanently settle in Britain after 20 years, instead of the current 5 years. The aim of Britain’s new system will be for most refugees to return to their home countries once it becomes safe to do so.

Further, asylum seekers will be forced to pay for the services they receive if they can afford to, Mahmood referencing a ludicrous situation in which an asylum seeker “who had recently acquired an Audi” was living in taxpayer-funded housing. Instead of hotels, the British government will look into housing asylum seekers in “large military sites,” and deportations of rejected asylum seekers will be ramped up.

The home secretary pledged that Britain will “always offer sanctuary to those fleeing danger”—but that it must do so carefully in a world that is “more volatile, and more mobile” with genuine refugees arriving alongside “economic migrants seeking to use, and abuse, our asylum system.”

Put simply, Britain will continue to receive and process asylum claims, but it will do so under a strict new approach that seeks to limit numbers, reject and deport economic migrants posing as refugees, and offer temporary sanctuary to genuine refugees until it is safe for them to leave and begin to rebuild their own countries.

Britain’s new approach is not unique. It has strong precedent in reforms first pioneered by Denmark, a country which once championed an open immigration policy that welcomed large numbers of newcomers, but is now known for having some of the strongest immigration restrictions in Western Europe.

This U-turn is known in Denmark as the paradigmeskiftet, or “paradigm shift.” Beginning with Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis, the shift culminated in 2019, when Denmark introduced 114 new restrictions “within the area of integration and immigration policy” according to a Migration Policy Institute report. Since then, Denmark has treated all refugees as temporary guests rather than permanent additions to their society.

The paradigm shift resulted from concerns around crime, wage suppression, and a fear that Denmark’s generous social services would be overwhelmed by uncontrolled migration. There was also a widespread perception that Danish values and social cohesion would be threatened if large numbers of newcomers from different cultures arrived and settled.

Other European countries have followed suit, with German leaders referencing Danish policy as inspiration for Germany’s own Migrationswende (“migration transition”), a tightening of asylum and border policies in 2024.

And now, Britain is undergoing a very similar shift (albeit with no fancy term to describe it), with Mahmood explicitly tying her government’s asylum reforms to Denmark’s in her House of Commons speech: “In Denmark, refugee status is temporary, and they provide safety and sanctuary until it is possible for a refugee to return home.”

Canada is in the midst of its own immigration reckoning, as poll after poll shows that Canadians are losing faith the system, with an unsustainable influx of newcomers being linked in the public mind to major added stresses on housing, hospitals, social services, and food banks.

Our asylum system is a major part of the problem, with asylum claims skyrocketing from 16,117 in 2015 to over 173,000 in 2024. In response, the federal government has introduced Bill C-12, making it significantly harder to file an asylum claim for those who have been in Canada for over a year, and giving the government the power to cancel immigration visas and applications.

The Opposition Conservatives have argued that the bill does not go far enough, and have introduced a number of amendments, notably one which would prevent individuals from claiming asylum if they have passed through Europe or any G7 country to get to Canada.

While this back-and-forth debate is a welcome sign that discussing immigration is no longer as taboo as it once was in Canada, we should also rethink the fundamental purpose of our asylum system—we need our own “Paradigmeskiftet.”

Britain and Denmark have decided to put their citizens first by offering asylum on a temporary rather than a permanent basis. They are not abandoning the idea of asylum—they are setting strict parameters for it. As the world becomes more dangerous, and populations become more mobile, we should consider a similar reform in Canada.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.