But sponsors will not continue to limit their submissions severely without seeing a stronger commitment from our government and more progress.
When we met with Minister Solberg, we requested that CIC commit to processing 9,000 persons per year. Otherwise, even after last year's progress, it will take not three but another ten years to clear the backlog.
We also recommended that the target range of 3,000 to 4,000 persons be increased to allow for more landings. The upper range was subsequently increased to 4,500.
But in recent years, CIC has had difficulty meeting the lower end of the range. Without more resources, increasing the upper end will make no difference. The department says that the program's high refusal rates are because sponsoring groups are not submitting the right cases and are using the program as a back door for people who are not refugees but who have relatives in Canada and no other way to be reunited with their families.
Although CIC has the authority to suspend or revoke the agreement of any sponsorship agreement holder who's not following the terms of their sponsorship agreement, they have taken no action against any SAH for knowingly or deliberately submitting cases that do not meet refugee criteria.
Micheline Aucoin, the director general, stated in a letter to SAHs that,
Family reunification is a legitimate use of the PSR program, providing the applicants overseas are refugees first and whose only durable solution is resettlement to Canada.
We wholeheartedly agree. Why would sponsoring groups choose to submit cases that would be refused, resulting in increased refusal rates, larger backlogs, and, worst of all, giving false hope to desperate people? Sponsorship agreement holders assure us that the need for protection is always the main criterion in selecting cases.
Janet Siddall told you that sponsors freely admit that they are responding to people in their community who are asking for help bringing their family members from abroad. As long as newcomers have brothers and sisters, parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins left behind in refugee situations, sponsors will be approached to help bring their relatives to safety.
The UNHCR recognizes the importance of family resettlement. Their selection criteria for the Iraqi refugees they will be referring for resettlement will include refugees with family members in the resettlement country.
Family separation in refugee resettlement is inevitable. As you know, private sponsors recently sponsored many government-referred cases of Karen refugees from Burma who have spent years in refugee camps. Great care was taken during the selection process to prevent family separation. Yet private sponsors are being approached to bring family members from other camps. These family members are also refugees, and sponsoring them into Canada provides them with protection.
This is often referred to as the echo effect. The beauty of our Canadian private sponsorship program is that it can respond to requests to sponsor both refugees referred by visa offices and refugees identified through organizational contacts overseas, human rights organizations, or family members already in Canada.
We don't claim that sponsors have always done a perfect job of screening, which is something that even the most highly trained visa officer can't claim. But many sponsors have participated in eligibility training provided by CIC. There's a better flow of information from CIC, giving them better screening tools and information about eligibility, country information, and changing country conditions, etc. Frankly, there is also a much greater awareness of the need to screen.
But cases in the pipeline were submitted before sponsors had these tools. The program is haunted by the past, causing negative perceptions within CIC and overseas visa posts. We want to move the program forward. Focusing on the past will not produce positive outcomes for anyone, whether sponsor, refugee, or government.
Thank you.