Media
Religious Groups and Refugee Sponsorship: Reflections from Strangers to Neighbours
Perspectives on the New Book “Strangers to Neighbours: Refugee Sponsorship in Context”
Refugee Sponsorship's Success and Sustainability
Cafe Scientifique: Is Canada a Safe Haven? Experiences in Resettling Refugees in Canada
Northern U.S. border experiences alarming influx of refugee crossings
NPR: All Things Considered, January 21, 2023Radio/Podcast
Migration Conversations, March 24, 2022Radio/Podcast
Why Quebec's refugee sponsorship suspension is so misguided
The National Post, November 23, 2020Online
URL: https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/why-quebecs-refugee-sponsorship-suspension-is-so-misguided
By Shauna Labman and Adele Garnier
What Joe Biden can learn from Canada’s private refugee sponsorship program
The National Post, May 17, 2021Online
By Shauna Labman and Geoffrey Cameron
When refugees knock at our door, Canada can’t turn a blind eye
Ottawa Citizen, June 28, 2021Online
This country has long been a world leader in refugee resettlement. But commending ourselves on what we've done right ignores the current grim reality at the Canada-U.S. border.
Maureen Silcoff, Shauna Labman
'A refugee is a refugee': Asylum changes threaten Canada's 'gold standard' system
CBC, April 20, 2019Online
URL: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/opinion-canada-refugees-1.5103772
Change will make refugee claimants who have made a claim in another country ineligible to make one in Canada.
Crossing Law's Border: Canada's Refugee Resettlement Program
by Shauna Labman
UBC Press, Law and Society Series
November 1, 2019
9780774862172
The UN Refugee Agency considers resettlement – the selection and transfer of refugees from the state where they seek asylum to another state – to be a tool of refugee protection and an expression of international burden sharing. Resettlement is voluntary and ad hoc, and Canada is one of three leading resettlement countries in the world.
In this account of Canada’s resettlement program from the Indochinese crisis of the 1970s to the Syrian crisis of the 2010s, Shauna Labman explores how rights, responsibilities, and obligations intersect in the absence of a legal scheme for refugee resettlement. She asks: How does law influence the voluntary act of resettlement, and how does resettlement policy affect the legal obligation of asylum? She reveals that the core concept of refugee protection, non-refoulement, which prevents countries from turning away asylum-seekers, can be compromised by resettlement, both by the resettlement selection process and the influence of resettlement practices on in-country asylum.
This pathbreaking look at the interplay between resettlement and asylum in one of the world’s most successful refugee protection programs shows that resettlement can either complement or complicate in-country asylum claims at a time when refugee crises and fear of outsiders are causing countries to close their borders to asylum-seekers around the world.
This book will appeal not only to scholars in law, sociology, and refugee and migration studies but also to general readers and policy makers interested in refugees and resettlement programs.
Biography
Dr. Shauna Labman is the Executive Director of the Global College at the University of Winnipeg as well as acting Director of the Human Rights Program and an associate professor. She is a lawyer and legal scholar who writes and speaks extensively on refugee law, resettlement, and private refugee sponsorship within a broader context of human rights and public international law. She focuses on the layered influences of law on public policy and government positioning. She completed both her PhD and LLM at the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law and received her LLB from the University of Victoria. Prior to joining the Global College, Professor Labman taught in the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba. She has previously worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in New Delhi, the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, the Law Commission of Canada in Ottawa, the Workers Compensation Board of BC, and the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.
Labman articled as a law clerk at Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal. In 2016 she was named one of CBC Manitoba’s “Future 40” for her work with educational, advocacy, and settlement groups. In 2022 she served as a member of Manitoba's Immigration Advisory Council.