I have a slightly different line. I first got involved in politics in 1979 during the time of the so-called boat people, the Vietnamese refugees. I lobbied the Canadian government to allow private sponsorship to establish a big program to bring in as many refugees as possible. I was working with churches and community groups at that time.
In 1980-81 and in the next few years, massive numbers--tens of thousands--of Vietnamese boat people came to Canada. I worked on a very successful campaign with Howard Adelman of Operation Lifeline, etc.
Just a bit of history.
Of course they settled in Canada very well. It's a great success story, and I have no doubt the Iraqi refugees, if we have such a program again, will settle well, because they're well educated and they would have the drive to do well in Canada. I have no doubt about that.
Having said that, I know how it worked very well before. There was a tremendous amount of political will at that time to make it happen, and the community and the government came together.
What numbers do you think would be appropriate? In the last few years it's been 300, 400, 800--it has been pathetically small. The recent announcements say 2,000--still very small. One percent, I think, of the 2.2 million people who are there would be 20,000. That's my math.
Do you have a ballpark figure on how it would work? Certainly there is the sponsoring of relatives, expanding the family class so that uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters can come. How would you envision this? First, perhaps you can give me a number, a ballpark figure of what you think would be appropriate.
Second, how do you think such a program would work? Is it mirroring what we did at the time of the Vietnamese boat people or something different? How do you envision it happening? If you were this committee, what would you recommend in a concrete way?