Citizenship and Immigration committee  We need only to look at what has happened in Quebec and Ontario recently. There's reason to be concerned about what could happen at the federal level.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would support the resettlement of as many Yazidis as necessary to resolve that long-standing and entrenched issue. I think this is where Canada has shown leadership in the past and this is where Canada can show leadership now.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As Mr. Smith said, this is a domestic policy issue. It's true that a population that fears foreigners will push local politicians to not accept immigrants.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, definitely. I think that the problem with the global compact is that it's this consensus document, but there's actually very little detail. There's no funding for the global academic network and there's no secretariat set up. This is an area where Canada could offer leadership, especially given the fact that Canadian academics, for better or worse, do lead a lot of the international associations on this issue.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Currently the way it's being conceived of is as an independent secretariat. The UNHCR would host that secretariat until someone else stepped up to take it over. It's supposed to be independent from the member states because there's supposed to be some kind of element of oversight, so there needs to be some independence or separation from the member states.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The forum itself is on the global compact on refugees only.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I just want to clarify that as the UNHCR representative has already said, this is not a document that we would ratify or not ratify; this is a UN resolution that would be adopted or not adopted by the UN General Assembly. Canada could choose to vote against the document, but we're not actually signing on to any kind of international legal document, just to clarify that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  About the particular situation, I defer to my colleagues who are better placed to say, but Canada has in the past resettled large numbers of people from particular contexts—for example, Indochinese refugees and Syrians—so I think it would be up to negotiations to see how many would need to be resettled in order for it to make an impact on the ground.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  —Canada could take leadership on addressing displacement, which falls outside of the global compacts, including the human caravan, which is a visible manifestation that falls between the global compact on migration and the global compact on refugees. Thank you. I can answer the questions in French.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for having me here again to appear before this committee. I'll give my presentation in English, but if you have any questions in French, I would be happy to answer them in French. I am speaking today in my individual capacity, but I'm also drawing on my experience as editor-in-chief of Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, as well as my role as president of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, IASFM.