Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Lena Metlege Diab participates in a family photo following a cabinet swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, on May 13.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Razan Nour is a Canadian-Sudanese community advocate involved in resettlement efforts. Yonah Diamond is a senior legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
In the coming weeks, Canadians will see whether the new Liberal cabinet delivers on its promise to be the party of equal rights. The government should start by redressing the discriminatory treatment of communities affected by conflict, particularly vis-à-vis Sudan, which is currently home to the world’s largest displacement crisis.
The Sudan conflict has killed 150,000 people and forced 13 million from their homes. More than 30 million people require humanitarian aid, including 24 million acutely malnourished individuals, as the Sudanese people suffer the world’s highest rate of famine. And in Darfur, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are committing a genocide. Just last month, the RSF stormed Sudan’s largest, famine-struck displaced persons camp, massacring hundreds of civilians and displacing hundreds of thousands of vulnerable women, children and elderly people.
In contrast to a rapidly deployed emergency program for Ukraine, Canada’s abysmal response to Sudan is characterized by inexcusably low application caps, administrative burdens and fatal processing times. This differential treatment suggests a pattern of systemic racism that must be addressed by the new Immigration Minister, Lena Diab.
It took nearly a year into the conflict for Canada to introduce a permanent resettlement program, and that one was narrowly restricted to relatives of Canadians, first capped at a mere 3,250 applications and later extended to 4,950. This program entails burdensome financial requirements, including disproportionately high processing fees ($635 per adult) and proof of income, which can include $22,650 in savings – a requirement uniquely imposed on Sudanese applicants. The eligibility requirements are also arbitrary and unjustifiable. Adult children above age 22 are denied dependency status, despite many having turned 22 during long processing delays. Parents are thus forced to make the unthinkable decision to leave their children in a war zone, including daughters exposed to widespread sexual violence.
By contrast, just three weeks into the war in Ukraine, Canada implemented an emergency visa program available to all Ukrainians and non-Ukrainian family members (i.e. without any Canadian connection), with no applicant cap, almost no fees, and a remarkably short 14-day processing window. From 2022 to 2024, Canada approved nearly one million applications under this program. In 2023, Canada launched a Latin American program without application fees and relatively short processing times, while Canadian-Sudanese applicants are left waiting 15 months and counting. Neither the Ukrainian nor Latin American programs required proof of finances, and both came with grants.
While the Sudan situation drastically deteriorated, Canadian-Sudanese families paid the government millions of dollars in application fees without expedited arrivals to show for it. These funds could have otherwise been sent directly to families in Sudan. As of this April, more than a year into the program, only 9 per cent of applicants have arrived in Canada, or just 716 people. To give a glimpse into how deprioritized this program is, some families endured the added torture of receiving erroneous visa offers, which were later rescinded, even after applicants put their lives at risk by undertaking dangerous journeys to provide biometric data to the Canadian government.
Canada’s robust mobilization for Ukrainian refugees shows that its failure to resettle Sudanese asylum seekers is not a matter of capacity, but of will. And with each passing day, the consequences are fatal. Razan Nour, a co-author of this article who is based in Edmonton, experienced this firsthand when her own grandfather, who was eligible for rapid processing, tragically passed away from heat stroke in Sudan after waiting five months with no updates; months after his death, Canada finally issued a travel document that could have saved his life. Shaza Eisa, also from Alberta, saw no progress for more than a year after applying for her sister and 17-year-old nephew; in February, due to the harsh conditions they endured in Cairo while awaiting a decision, her nephew died from pneumonia. Yet Canada still refuses to expedite her sister’s application.
These stories are not unique, but part of a growing list of Sudanese applicants who have died, been kidnapped, injured or tortured during these lengthy processing delays. There are even reports of immigration officers defying a ministerial directive to expedite Sudanese cases, further underscoring the cruel impact of institutional bias. Were Canada’s immigration policy applied in an even remotely equal manner, these individuals could have been safe with their families in Canada today.
Canada can and must urgently implement a response commensurate with the unprecedented magnitude of this conflict. It must treat the Canadian-Sudanese community the same as anyone else. This means open-ended measures to reunite all families torn apart, the removal of discriminatory financial and eligibility requirements, and expedited processing of existing applications.
These simple correctives are a matter of life and death for Canadian-Sudanese families, and well within Ms. Diab’s power.
Editor’s note: A May 16 opinion article about Canada’s immigration policy for Sudan incorrectly stated that it took nearly a year after the outbreak of civil war in the country for Canada to introduce any resettlement program, and that it was introduced with a cap of 3,250 applicants. It was nearly a year before a permanent resettlement program was introduced, with a cap of 3,250 applications that could include more than one person per application. The published article also stated that, as of this February, only 4 per cent of applicants had arrived in Canada, or 291 people. As of this April, only 9 per cent of applicants, or 716 people, have arrived in Canada. (May 30, 2025) An additional correction was made to note that as of this April, the program had been in effect for more than a year.