It's hard for me to speak for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but let me explain my understanding of what they have told us about the way they choose. Basically the signatories to the covenant on refugee protection in the United Nations.... Canada is a signatory. There are few receiving countries. They are now getting more. As I mentioned earlier, a refugee, by definition--and there are various little subheadings to this--is a person who has been persecuted in their country of origin, who has reasonable reason to fear being persecuted if they are returned to their country of origin, and who is outside of their country of origin. That is the basic definition.
The UN makes referrals to the refugee-accepting countries based on that definition. The major countries are the United States, Australia, the Scandinavian countries, Canada, etc. Canada, per capita, takes more than its share. One of the things the UN has told me is that it's based on posts. For example, we have only four posts in Africa that deal with refugees. Now, considering the scenario that's going on in Africa compared to the number of posts we have in Europe, it strikes one that there is an anomaly there. Why are there only those four posts that deal with refugees, in Nairobi, Cairo, Accra, and Pretoria, leaving a huge hole in the centre? Nairobi, in particular, is overwhelmed.
The United Nations tells me they will refer to various countries based on what they feel the expeditiousness of doing it will be. So, for example, what I have been told particularly by a UNHCR officer from the Horn of Africa is that they will refer to Australia or Scandinavia first for the most urgent cases. The reason they give is that it takes Canada so long to process. If they need to move people quickly, they need them processed quickly, so they'll go to the Australians, and they'll go to the Americans before they will go to Canada.
This embarrasses me as a Canadian. It should embarrass all of us. There is something wrong with our system if we can't process as quickly as the other receiving countries.
So when you're asking me how the UN determines, I think they determine the urgency of need, and then if it's really urgent they won't go to Canada; they'll go someplace else because our system is not effective.