Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 30th, 2008

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay. That's what I wanted to ask you to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

So if you want to make a comment about Iraqi refugees and how you're dealing with that problem, it would be beneficial for some members.

Coming up next today we have witnesses from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They will be witnesses on the Iraqi refugee study we're presently undertaking. You're free to stay for it, if you want to.

Maybe you can give us a thumbnail sketch, because we're running out of time rapidly. Are you having problems with Iraqi refugees and the settlement of Iraqi refugees in Germany?

[Volker Schneider]

In Germany we are having a discussion right now on the way to accept Iraqi refugees in a non-bureaucratic manner. First and foremost, we are concerned about Christians from Iraq, but when we start with Christians we ask ourselves, and then who else? Then we end up with a much more complicated and bureaucratic process than we intended at the outset.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, I can't go to any more questions.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

It's not a question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, is it an observation?

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

It's an observation and a question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You told me no questions.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Trust me, it'll be okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Be very brief.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Since there will be a policy and the policy is being worked out, I wonder if one of you gentlemen would send to our chairman the policy, once it is worked out, regarding the Iraqi refugees, and particularly regarding the question of who within the Iraqi refugees you will accept--Christians or everyone.

[Klaus-Peter Flosbach]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, we have no more comments.

Thank you. Unfortunately, we are out of time. Hopefully in our meeting today we provided some information that may be useful for you in tackling some of the challenges you have in Germany with the refugee problem, and immigration problems generally. Hopefully your meetings with the minister have proven to be productive as well. We have a lot to share, and obviously one hour is not enough. So maybe some day we can meet again, hopefully in Germany, to do it all over again.

Thank you very much for coming.

[Klaus-Peter Flosbach]

Thank you very much for the most interesting information and discussion. In the last two years there have been 15 delegations from our parliament to Ottawa, and we hope that one of the next delegations will be from our immigration committee. Thank you very much, on behalf of my delegation.

The symbol for Berlin is the bear of Berlin, l'ours de Berlin. I have one bear for every member of the committee. Merci beaucoup. Vielen Dank. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you. We'll suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll try to get our meeting back to order.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

I'd like to know why it is that in some committee meetings we have mineral water and in some committee meetings we do not have mineral water. I would like to ask that henceforth bottles of mineral water be set up along with the coffee and fruit juices at one end of the room.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, for your understanding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you. I'm sure the clerk has taken note of that and will act accordingly.

I want to welcome, on behalf of the committee, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Abraham Abraham, the representative in Canada; Hy Shelow, senior protection officer; and Michael Casasola, resettlement officer.

Welcome, gentlemen.

I think I have a second point of order before I turn it over to you.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order or a point of discussion. In having this hearing, I think the committee has overlooked inviting the Iraqi ambassador to Canada to hear his perspective and to hear the country of Iraq's official perspective. I would therefore ask if I may make a motion, or if we can unanimously accept that we should invite him. I have given the coordinates to the Clerk of the House. I spoke to a couple of members and I don't think there should be any difficulty in our allotting him 45 minutes or an hour and we should invite him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Well, I think we will have some time to do that when we get into committee business, which will be the fifth report of the subcommittee. We can include that particular request at that time. We can discuss it at that time, on the subcommittee agenda report, which we'll be presenting in about an hour from now.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Gentlemen, welcome to our committee. As you know, we've been holding hearings right across the country, and Iraqi refugees have been one of the three items that we've been discussing between Vancouver right on back to St. John's. We met in nine provinces in 12 days and we had quite a bit of discussion on this and other items.

I will turn it over to you to make some opening statements and then we will go to our committee members, who might want to make some comments as well.

Thank you.

[Abraham Abraham, Representative in Canada, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees]

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on UNHCR's efforts to address the humanitarian needs of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons. For some of you who are not familiar with UNHCR's work, I will start with a few words about who we are and what we do.

UNHCR is mandated to lead and coordinate international action to protect refugees and find solutions to refugee problems worldwide. The 1951 refugee convention and its 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees are the foundation of our work to help and protect the world's refugees.

While our primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees, UNHCR's work has expanded to include vulnerable groups such as the internally displaced and stateless people. We are working in 117 countries and help an estimated 32.9 million persons, with an annual budget of more than $1 billion.

I now turn to the situation in Iraq. UNHCR estimates that more than 4.7 million Iraqis have left their homes, and many remain in dire need of humanitarian care. Of these, more than 2.7 million Iraqis are displaced internally, do not have access to social services, and are barely surviving in makeshift camps that are inaccessible to aid workers for security reasons.

More than two million Iraqis have fled to neighbouring states, particularly Syria and Jordan. Some were displaced prior to 2003, but the largest number has fled since that time. Syria hosts 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, which represents 10% of the total population of Syria. In Jordan, we estimate the number of Iraqi refugees to be more than 500,000, of whom half are believed to be school-aged children.

Today, Iraqi nationals continue to leave their country. Restrictions on admission imposed by neighbouring countries limit the movement of those wishing to seek asylum. UNHCR's provisional asylum statistics for the year 2007 show that for the second year running, Iraqis top the list of asylum seekers in the world's industrialized countries. The number of Iraqis applying for asylum almost doubled in one year, from 22,900 in 2006 to 45,200 in 2007.

Iraqi asylum seekers in industrialized countries represent only 1% of the estimated 4.7 million Iraqis uprooted by the conflict. Canada has so far not experienced comparable surges in the number of Iraqi asylum seekers. For example, statistics from CIC show that during 2007, 293 Iraqis claimed asylum in Canada; there were 190 Iraqis in 2006.

Inside Iraq, UNHCR and its partners are trying to do as much as possible to help the displaced, even though security conditions make this difficult. We are providing emergency assistance to the neediest, visiting the accessible displacement sites or makeshift camps and providing non-food items and emergency shelter. In the region, UNHCR is focusing on preserving asylum space. The states surrounding Iraq face significant challenges due to the sheer volume of the displaced population.

I would like to call attention to the generosity of Syria and Jordan, who host the largest number of Iraqi refugees. This is placing a substantial strain on the economy and the societal infrastructure of Syria and Jordan.

UNHCR continues to appeal for more bilateral support, including from Canada, to Syria and Jordan, whose schools, hospitals, public services, and infrastructure are seriously overstretched. We are making every effort to ensure that Iraqi refugees in the region are protected, notably against detention and deportation. We also ensure that the basic humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees, including urgent medical cases, single-female-headed households, children, torture victims, and others are addressed, in cooperation with the government authorities and other partners. Registration has been an important step in identifying the most vulnerable.

In 2008, a UNHCR-commissioned survey of nearly 1,000 Iraqis currently staying in Syria has shown that 95% had fled their homeland because of direct threats or general insecurity and that only 4% currently had plans to return to Iraq. A total of 95% stated they had fled Iraq in recent years due to either direct threats, 65%, or general insecurity, 30%. The survey revealed that out of all those interviewed, only 39 out of 994 people, or 4%, are planning to return to Iraq. Of the 39 people, 31% plan to return within the next 12 months and the remainder have not set a date.

The following reasons were given by those not wishing to return: 61% stated that they are under direct threat in Iraq; 29% do not want to return because of the general insecurity in Iraq; 8% responded that their homes in Iraq had been destroyed or are currently occupied by others; 1% said they had no jobs in Iraq; and 1% said that they had no more relatives left at home.

UNHCR has greatly expanded its resettlement activities to respond to the Iraqi humanitarian situation and is seeking from states an increase in resettlement numbers. Last year more than 21,000 Iraqi resettlement cases were submitted by UNHCR to 16 governments for consideration, mainly to the United States, 15,477; Australia, 1,876; Canada, 1,515; Sweden, 938; and New Zealand, 266. The UNHCR target for 2008 is to submit an additional 25,000 cases for resettlement.

Despite our increased referral capacity, we are extremely concerned about the low rate of departures to date. In 2007, only a total of 4,826 Iraqis referred for resettlement actually left for resettlement countries. UNHCR continues to encourage resettlement countries to expedite their processing to enable the most vulnerable Iraqis to depart for resettlement as soon as possible, taking into account that there are still more than 80,000 to 90,000 extremely vulnerable Iraqi refugees in the Middle East in need of resettlement. More resettlement places are required.

Mr. Chair, committee members, regarding funding and pledges, in 2007 UNHCR issued three appeals aimed at helping countries in the region to cope with the humanitarian crisis.

The first appeal for $123 million U.S., issued in January, committed $41 million U.S. to Syria for humanitarian assistance.

The second appeal for $129 million U.S., jointly issued by the United Nations Children's Fund and UNHCR in July 2007, committed over $63 million U.S. to support the education sector.

A third appeal for $84,833,647 U.S., jointly issued by the United Nations Population Fund, UNHCR, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations World Food Programme, and the World Health Organization in September 2007, aimed to address the urgent health needs of displaced Iraqis living in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt.

In January 2008, UNHCR appealed for $261 million U.S. for our work on behalf of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons. A total of $40 million U.S. will be for Iraqis displaced inside the country. So far, we have received just under half that amount, which is not enough to keep our programs going during the second half of 2008.

Mr. Chair, committee members, in April 2007 UNHCR convened an international conference on Iraq. The main aims of the international conference were to sensitize the international community to the humanitarian impact of the violence and conflict in Iraq, to seek commitments to address the immediate and foreseeable needs, and to identify targeted responses to specific problems. Following this conference, Canada announced that it would accept another 500 Iraqi referrals in addition to the 900 persons it had already committed to accepting in 2007.

Canada has provided a contribution of $2.5 million Canadian in response to our first Iraq appeal issued in January 2007.

In 2008, Canada's response to the Iraqi crisis was twofold. On March 19, 2008, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration announced that Canada would receive between 1,800 and 2,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008. In terms of contributions, Canada has so far agreed to provide contributions amounting to $1.5 million Canadian towards our appeal for Iraq.

Mr. Chair, committee members, before I conclude, I would like to comment briefly on the plight of Palestinian refugees in Iraq. UNHCR remains very concerned about an estimated 15,000 Palestinians in Iraq who are under its mandate. Some 2,700 of them have been stranded for the past year in two camps at the Iraq-Syria border. Palestinians are under constant threat in Baghdad, while those in the makeshift border sites have recently reported increasing physical attacks and harassment.

In view of their dire condition and the difficulty they have leaving Iraq, UNHCR feels that humanitarian relocation to places of safety is their best option. Thus far, only Brazil, Chile, Canada, and the U.S.A. have indicated a willingness to provide solutions. UNHCR hopes for a greater response from other countries.

Let me now conclude these remarks by saying that UNHCR acknowledges all contributions that have been made so far to address the humanitarian situation faced by Iraqi refugees and IDPs. However, given the magnitude of the needs, we continue to appeal for increased and sustained financial contributions. We also urge the international community to provide bilateral assistance, including financial, technical, and in-kind aid, to host countries, including Jordan and Syria, to support basic services to Iraqi refugees.

UNHCR urges countries to help resettle those vulnerable refugees for whom this is the only solution. Canada is a strategic partner to UNHCR, and we remain deeply grateful to the government and people of Canada for their continuing support of UNHCR's humanitarian interventions worldwide. We all hope that the situation of displaced Iraqis will improve and that Canada will play its due role in alleviating their plight.

Mr. Chair, committee members, I thank you for having me here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Abraham. It's been a very heart-wrenching report that you've given us.

I will now go to committee members, who I'm sure will have some comments to make.

Is it Ms. Beaumier or Mr. Karygiannis?

[Colleen Beaumier, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I was first.

This is a very frustrating situation for a lot of us. There are many of us who were adamantly opposed to this invasion of Iraq, because that is what has caused the instability. I'm not saying that Iraq was always a beautiful place to live, but it certainly had stability.

I want to know what the U.S. provides internally for displaced Iraqis. I want to know who is involved in helping. And if we're talking about financial aid--and of course for everything you need money--are we giving this money to the governments of Syria and Jordan, or are we giving it to NGOs who are taking on the responsibility for these Iraqis?

I guess you can start with that. I'll probably have more to add. Are you wanting us to take more refugees into Canada, or is it basically more money to stabilize the refugees in that part of the world?