Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I believe by mid-November the UNHCR referred 1,361 Iraqis to Canada for resettlement in 2007. What is the process by which your department decides which of these individuals to accept or deny?

[Bruce Scoffield]

The process is one that is the same for refugees whether they'd be sponsored by a group in Canada or referred to us by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. A visa officer assesses the case under the Canadian statutory and regulatory requirements, so a visa officer has to be satisfied that in fact this is a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution. In addition, the officer has to be satisfied that resettlement makes sense, that this person doesn't have another option for what we call a durable solution, that is, they don't have another country they can go to nor can they return to their own country. Finally, the visa officer has to be satisfied that they will be able to support themselves within a reasonable period of time after arriving in Canada and that they do not pose a risk to the health, safety, or security of Canadians.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

How does the UNHCR decide how many Iraqis to refer to Canada?

[Bruce Scoffield]

That is based on consultations between the Government of Canada and the UNHCR. They refer the number--usually, at least--that we ask them to refer.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

How much financial and material aid has the Canadian government sent to Iraq and its neighbours to assist Iraqi refugees, displaced Iraqis?

[Françoise Ducros, Director General, Europe, Middle East and Maghreb Branch, Canadian International Development Agency]

It has sent $5.5 million, of which $2.5 million was sent through the International Committee of the Red Cross, $2.5 million to the UNHCR, and a smaller fund of $500,000 was sent to OCHA. This was sent in a pooled fund, all of which was to deal with humanitarian aid in the region and in surrounding countries, with the UNHCR for the Iraqi refugees outside and displaced persons inside through the International Red Cross.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The rest of my time, Mr. Chair, I'll pass on to Mr. Komarnicki. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have three, almost four, minutes. Go ahead.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

I want to continue on the question of how Canada is doing in comparison to other countries. I gather reasonably well, from what you said. But given the magnitude of the situation there, even if you doubled or tripled what we're now doing, it still would not be a significant dent in, so to speak, the number of refugees who are there. Is that correct?

[Micheline Aucoin]

Yes. In the sense that there are 10 million refugees in the world right now, throughout the world there are about 100,000 resettlement spots that are available. So it's quite clear that resettlement will always be a solution for only a small portion of refugees.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Then of course another issue is financial contribution to either reconstruction or meeting the humanitarian needs in the country or countries nearby to alleviate the situation. How has Canada done in that regard?

[Françoise Ducros]

Canada has given a commitment of $300 million, which was made in 2003, over six years. We have disbursed $285 million to this point. Of that, $50.5 million is in humanitarian aid and other parts of it are to other reconstruction and development initiatives.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Another question has to do with the use of private sponsorship. Ms. Chow raised that already.

I guess the idea behind this is that, for value, you may be able to bring more people in for fewer dollars. Has someone looked at what is the best bang for the buck when you have a limited quantity of dollars to deal with? Where might it best be applied? Has anybody thought about that? Are there any theories about where it might go to achieve the most benefit?

[Bruce Scoffield]

I think I would try to respond to that, Mr. Chair, by saying that we think both programs--the program of government-assisted refugees that we receive referrals for from the UNHCR and the privately sponsored program--are important, and they meet somewhat different needs.

The UNHCR looks at the entire population and tries to prioritize resettlement based on agreed characteristics--for example, someone being a victim of torture or someone being a woman head of household. The privately sponsored program is one where people are largely identified through links to communities already in Canada. Of course, that certainly is very helpful when they arrive in terms of their settlement prospects.

We are increasing in the region the number of refugees, under both programs, who will be resettled.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

But just dollar for dollar, do you find that the private sponsorship of refugees is a lesser demand than government-sponsored refugees or not?

[Bruce Scoffield]

Well, there's one very important difference: the government is not spending federal settlement dollars in that first year after arrival to assist the refugees sponsored by communities, as those costs are being borne by the sponsors.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

And that would free up dollars for other types of work in this area as well.

Another issue that many people have raised is the length of time it takes to process refugees. Is part of that to do with security concerns or security checks? Is that a particular issue or not?

[Bruce Scoffield]

Certainly this is a caseload of people that requires very careful scrutiny in terms of security and other background issues. CIC works very closely with their partners, such as the Canada Border Services Agency, to make sure that each case is given very thorough scrutiny. And yes, that does take a fair bit of time.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That completes our seven-minute round.

Now I will go to Mr. Telegdi for five minutes.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

So 4.4 million--that's quite a number.

You said we took in 900 this year. How many did we take in last year?

[Bruce Scoffield]

In 2006, a total of 261 privately sponsored refugees and 92 UNHCR-referred government-assisted refugees from Iraq were resettled.

That's 353, if my math is right.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

And the year before?

[Bruce Scoffield]

I don't have 2005 figures, I'm afraid. We could provide those to the committee....

Oh, we have those.

[Micheline Aucoin]

That would be 84 government-assisted refugees and 412 privately sponsored refugees, for a total of 496.