Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, for the invitation to speak with you today.
I'm joining you from the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinabe and most recently the Haudenosaunee people.
Thank you for the work of this committee, and for being responsive to this urgent need.
I would first like to acknowledge those who have been impacted by the Taliban's takeover, the millions of Afghans living under Taliban rule in need of vital humanitarian relief, the thousands who have been newly displaced as a result, and the millions of Afghan refugees whose needs predate the Taliban takeover.
I'm here in representation of the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders Association. We are the national umbrella organization for 130 sponsorship agreement holders, or SAHs for short, across Canada outside of Quebec.
I imagine you're familiar with the private sponsorship of refugees program, or the PSR program as I will refer to it moving forward, but in short I will note that our organizations hold an agreement with the government that enables us to add to government resettlement commitments by facilitating the private sponsorship of refugees from around the world. Each year the government sets the total number of spaces, one space per individual refugee, that SAHs can access to submit new sponsorship applications.
SAHs and the diverse communities in which they are embedded stand ready to welcome more Afghan nationals. SAHs are eagerly awaiting an announcement on how the additional commitment of 20,000 spaces for Afghan nationals will be distributed. SAHs are receiving many inquiries from Canadians who are wanting to respond, many of whom know of Afghan refugees they would like to name to bring to Canada. Without further information, there are limits to the ways SAHs can effectively inform and mobilize our communities and effectively plan for this increased engagement.
While wanting to assist with the Afghan initiative, SAHs are concerned about the impacts this response will have on the existing inventory. I was just on a call last week with a sponsor who is supporting a 22-year-old Congolese refugee currently in Namibia. That refugee been separated from his mother and siblings for seven years and has had to literally fight for his life while awaiting for his case to be processed to come to Canada. This Congolese refugee and his sponsor were both concerned about the impacts that the Afghan and Ukrainian response could have in delaying his case further. With the historic high inventory of over 70,000 persons in the system, most of whom are in just as much need as Afghan refugees, the government needs to ensure that IRCC is funded sufficiently to process the Afghan response, the new Ukrainian response and the existing caseload.
One key recommendation that we wish to bring to the committee is for the government to develop a framework for immigration and refugee responses to emergencies that sets objective criteria. This would allow all of the actors involved to be well prepared to act quickly, and would help maintain transparency and equity in the strategic use of resettlement.
SAHs are a long-standing, reliable and risk-managed partner of the government in refugee resettlement. The PSR program can play a significant role in emergency responses by providing an avenue for family reunification and for community building. SAHs carry infrastructure that is worth investing in, not only to manage current interest but also to support the quality of post-arrival settlement and the long-term integration of newcomers. We stand well poised to help government harness public interest, but need to scale up our capacity to do so.
In December 2021, just last December, we met with the Minister of Immigration, Sean Fraser, and proposed the creation of a public/private national SAH capacity-building fund. We believe there's an opportunity to make use of this surge moment to build infrastructure for sustainability.
In summary our four key messages are that SAHs need more information on the distribution of the additional commitment of 20,000 spaces to effectively plan and engage; IRCC needs to be funded sufficiently to process the existing inventory of Afghan and Ukrainian responses; an emergency response framework with objective criteria is needed to maintain equity and transparency in the strategic use of resettlement; and we would point out that SAHs are a reliable and risk-managed partner in refugee resettlement. A private/public national SAH capacity-building fund could support our ability to work with you to meet the demand of both public interest and Afghan need.
We look forward to continuing to work toward our shared goal of assisting those displaced by the situation in Afghanistan in a timely way.
Thank you.