OTTAWA — Micheal T. Butch remembers meeting the couple at a Tim Hortons in 2021, with a mission to suss out whether they were truly Roma.
Florin Iordache and his wife, Cristina Monalisa Zenaida Iordache, passed the test. So Butch, the president of Toronto's Roma Community Centre, wrote a letter asserting their familiarity with Romani customs to support their asylum claim.
It was a step in proving they faced discrimination in their democratic home country of Romania, which is a member of the European Union.
Butch said he remembers breaking out in song to lighten a heavy moment during that meeting, crooning the Nat King Cole song "Mona Lisa." Cristina started "cracking up laughing," he recalled.
Last week, Florin and Cristina were found dead in the St. Lawrence River, along with their Canadian-born two-year-old daughter Evelin and one-year-old son Elyen, after an apparent attempt to make it to the United States.
The claim had been denied. And their lawyer had recently informed the couple they were to be deported back to Romania.
Their bodies, and those of four other migrants, were found near Akwesasne, Que.
"Canada should be ashamed of themselves," Butch said in an interview Wednesday. "As of these last couple of days, I've been really ashamed of this situation."
The tragedy is calling attention to historic prejudices against Romani refugee claimants in Canada's immigration system.
That included relatively recent changes instituted to crack down on what Stephen Harper's Conservative government suggested were illegitimate claims.
Even though those measures were ended and Roma refugee claims are now more likely to be accepted, the policies likely have a lasting affect on decision-makers, advocates argue.
Romani people have experienced systemic and overt discrimination and segregation in European countries for generations, which sometimes escalates to acts of violence.
But Canada does not always see that discrimination as persecution, which is the legal threshold for granting refugee status.
In 2012, former immigration minister Jason Kenney argued that democracies with respectable legal systems don't normally produce real refugees fleeing persecution, and famously deemed the vast majority of such claims to be bogus.
The then-government created a list of countries deemed "safe" — including Hungary, the source of a spike in claims from Romani people — and limited the ability of asylum seekers from those countries to appeal their cases.
The practice was later deemed unconstitutional, said Jen Danch, an advisory member with the Canadian Romani Alliance.
"You can't you can't have a co-ordinated media campaign to convince the Canadian public that Romani refugees are bogus, and then 10 years later not expect there to be a hangover from that those discriminatory messaging," Danch said in an interview.
The government had also run billboard and brochure campaigns in Hungary to dissuade Romani people from coming to Canada.
One the ways that plays out is that Immigration and Refugee Board members are more likely to find Romani applicants not to be credible, said Danch, who studied data related to Romani refugee claims.
Still, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said all eligible asylum claimants receive an independent and fair assessment on the individual merits of their claims.
"Each claim is decided individually on its own merits based on the evidence and arguments presented, and in accordance with Canada’s immigration laws," said Stuart Isherwood, a spokesperson for the department, in a statement Wednesday.
Last year, 68 per cent of refugee applicants from Hungary were accepted, IRCC data show. About 38 per cent of claims from Romania were approved.
"It has been a little bit better. It has improved," Butch said.
He said he often serves as translator between Roma and their Canadian lawyers, and he's heard countless stories of their mistreatment in Romania.
There are anecdotes of children segregated or kicked out of school because of they are Roma, police turning away women who were raped and sexually assaulted, Romani people denied health care and instances of Molotov cocktails thrown at Romani homes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said this week that investigations are underway into exactly what happened to the Iordache family.
They have urged people not to jump to conclusions.
But Butch said the lordache family's decision to bundle their toddlers onto a boat and try to flee to the United States to avoid deportation is indicative of just how bad conditions are in Romania for Romani people.
"That tells you a lot," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2023.
Laura Osman, The Canadian Press
