Lawyers with RBC Law Group say the project aims to ensure minors are properly represented
A project that connects Ontario lawyers with minors who need help navigating Canada’s refugee claim process has relaunched years after the project’s participants began negotiating a new structure.
The Unaccompanied Minors Project was first established in 2011 by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the Royal Bank of Canada’s Law Group, McCarthy Tétrault, and Pro Bono Ontario. In 2021, the participants began renegotiating the agreement that governed the project.
The project continued to operate throughout the negotiations and relaunched with a new structure this spring. Under the restructure, Pro Bono Ontario’s management of the project was transferred to the Centre for Refugee Children, which offers holistic services tailored to refugee minors, including help with securing housing, navigating healthcare services, and obtaining legal information.
Mary Arzoumanidis says the Unaccompanied Minors Project was in “full swing” when she joined the bank’s in-house legal team in 2014. Now the Canada chair of RBC Law Group’s pro bono committee, Arzoumanidis says she wanted to ensure it was “front and centre again for this new crop of lawyers” who have since joined the team.
“We really do live our purpose, which is to help our communities prosper,” Arzoumanidis says of RBC Law Group. The lawyer adds that the bank is “very, very supportive” of the legal team’s various pro bono initiatives.
“I don’t know about other law groups, other departments, and other banks,” she adds. “But RBC – this is definitely something that they do.”
Under the project, participating lawyers act as designated representatives for minors under 18 years old in IRB proceedings. According to the IRB, designated representatives are typically parents, family members, legal guardians, or friends. In cases where these people are unavailable, the IRB will contract with a person who has volunteered to help represent the minor.
The Unaccompanied Minors Project allows participating lawyers to sign on as volunteers. But Akshata Srinath, senior counsel at RBC Law Group, clarifies that these volunteers are not acting as legal counsel to the minors they are paired with.
“Our main idea here is to make sure that they are comfortable, they are being represented properly,” Srinath says of the minors. “You are talking to the counsels when the minors are there. We’re trying to explain to the minors what the proceedings will look like once they enter into a proceeding – basically, overall making sure that they are well heard.”
While designated representatives do not need to be lawyers, Arzoumanidis says it can be beneficial for lawyers to serve in these roles.
A designated representative “could be anybody from the community as far as I understand,” Arzoumanidis says.
“Having said that, lawyers do bring some expertise – familiarity with the legal system, how to read legal documents,” she adds.
Srinath says many of the minors RBC lawyers have worked with through the project are accompanied by adults when they arrive at the Canadian border. However, many of them have different interests than those of adults due to their status as minors.
Srinath adds that she wanted to participate in the project based on her own experiences as an immigrant. “I moved to Canada around eight years ago, and to navigate a completely different environment, a new system – it can be difficult,” she says. “Also, I’m a parent, so when I look at these minors and imagine how they’re overwhelmed [and] probably alone trying to figure out the immigration system here, it motivated me to give back to the community and give these minors a safe and consistent anchor.”
Arzoumanidis, meanwhile, situates the project within RBC Law Group’s longstanding involvement in pro bono initiatives, citing the legal team’s participation in Pro Bono Ontario’s free legal advice hotline and volunteer activities at Haven Toronto, a shelter for unhoused men.
The Unaccompanied Minors Project is another “wonderful program for our lawyers new to the Law Group to experience and to have an opportunity to give back to the community,” she adds.
