Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 27th, 2018

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

The centre of the universe.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I think we're all hearing it.

The rejections may create more work at IRCC, but it has doubled the work in constituency offices, which serve as branch plant offices for IRCC every day.

That's not overstated is it, committee?

We may formulate that. I can get back to you about the kind of data we need, but I think we do need that here.

[Matt de Vlieger]

We'd be happy to take that as an undertaking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Now we will hear from Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the officials for being here today.

I'm going to ask about LGBTQ refugees for several reasons. One is of course that they are a group that is high risk. They are often survivors of sexual violence before they arrive as refugees, and because of homophobia or transphobia they most often lack support networks available to other refugees. I acknowledge that there are other high-risk refugees. I'm not saying it's the only group.

I have approached two ministers of immigration in the Liberal government. In concert with Egale, Canada's human rights trust, with a proposal for what Egale calls a coordinated response to LGBTQ refugees—and I may not have the right people here—I'm going to ask, was that presented to the department for evaluation?

[Jean-Marc Gionet]

It might have been but I'm not familiar, off the top, if that's come across my desk.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

That's the kind of answer I expected, and it's the answer that concerns me. If it was given serious consideration, I would expect the group we have here would actually have seen it.

Minister McCallum and Minister Hussen wrote back very similar letters to me, after I approached both of them, which essentially said what I think is the problem here. They said that there is no discrimination, that they treat LGBTQ refugees exactly the same as everyone else. That's the problem. There are special needs here as high-risk refugees, both in terms of trying to access our system abroad and the services received here.

I want to say that there have been some improvements. Certainly, the Immigration and Refugee Board has a better set of guidelines for evaluating claims. That's a big step forward. On an emergency basis, your department has often been quite responsive. I think, in particular, to nothing less than a pogrom against gay men in Chechnya, where the department was very responsive. I'm not saying that you've never done the right thing. I'm saying quite often you do.

In countries in conflict—and this is where it first came up for us—like Syria, or in the surrounding countries that are taking in most of the refugees, how would an LGBTQ refugee access our system? How do they know they can make a claim based on sexual orientation, and how do they actually do that safely?

[Jean-Marc Gionet]

I think there are a couple of parts to that question.

I think the previous witnesses touched on accessing the UNHCR in terms of getting a referral for resettlement to Canada. Again, just to restate what was said earlier, when we do engage with the UNHCR to determine what cases we need from which part of the world, we do it, as the UNHCR mentioned, based on vulnerability: What is the protection need and the resettlement need based on in that particular country at that particular point, whether that be physical or legal protection needs for LGBTQ persons or survivors of torture or whatnot?

Again, it varies greatly from country to country in terms of the NGO network that is in place to support them. In some instances, that does not exist.

One of the programs we have at IRCC as well is the rainbow refugee resettlement assistance program, whereby we provide some funding to private sponsors who do choose to sponsor LGBTQ refugees. That program was recently renewed until 2020. Again, I think part of it is the community here in Canada reaching out and building the networks on the ground where these conflicts occur to make those in need aware of the solutions.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Certainly the funding for the rainbow refugee assistance program has been very welcome, although I will note it's still temporary funding. The LGBTQ community is not going away anytime soon, so I have trouble understanding why it remains a temporary program.

We know that accessing the system abroad is a difficult problem. Most LGBTQ refugees are not in camps because camps are not safe places for them in places like Syria or Turkey. They do have difficulty, because a lot of the selection is done through the camp process.

One of the things we were suggesting in the coordinated response was identifying local agencies that would be safe places where people could go to make an initial contact. We've had numerous examples, especially in the Kakuma camp in Kenya, where people who made claims based on sexual orientation were subsequently subject to violence because the confidentiality was not maintained.

Is there any special training on dealing with claims from the LGBTQ community that is given to Canadian personnel abroad who might receive asylum claims? Are they often local hires?

[Jean-Marc Gionet]

I can certainly speak to the staff who are Canada-based and who go overseas. My colleague might be able to add a bit more on the local side.

Certainly each year there's a training program for officers who go out to deal with resettled refugee cases, and a component of that training deals with how to appropriately treat with sensitivity claims that are brought to them or applications that are brought to them from the LGBTQ2 community.

[Mark Giralt]

I would add that in our offices abroad, our program managers are ultimately responsible for the delivery of our programs. Part of what they will do is evaluate circumstances in which having our locally engaged staff involved in the processing of an application may add risk or may not be prudent, not just for the applicant but also for the employees. We'll take special measures and the Canada-based officer will do more than they would maybe normally do in the processing to protect the integrity of the process and make sure everybody's able to be processed without a problem.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

In terms of settlement services on this side, anecdotally one of the things we found with the large number of Syrians who came was, first of all, there appeared to be very few LGBTQ refugees among the 25,000 Syrians when we should have expected, by numbers, 500 to 1,000. There doesn't seem to have been anywhere near that volume. That, to me, indicates a problem in the selection process. When they came, there was a tendency to assign settlement services to Syrians. The problem for LGBTQ refugees, those few who I do know in that category, for instance, was that they were assigned a language class which their identity made impossible to attend.

Is there any acknowledgement right now that LGBTQ refugees, once they get here, quite often require some different services or specific services? Again, to the second part of my question, there was, I think, a generalized failure to acknowledge that the trauma level might be different for LGBTQ refugees than for others.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need to cut you off there.

Mr. Whelan, you have seven minutes. That's maybe even a little generous.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As long as it matches up with Mr. Garrison's time, we should be okay.

There's a few things I'd like to cover. The first is ODA.

My understanding is that last year the OECD Development Assistance Committee changed some of the rules around measuring ODA to include government expenditures on the first year of settlement services provided for refugees in the host country. I'm wondering if you guys are tracking that this year, and roughly where Canada might be in this additional classification of ODA.

[Glen Linder]

We don't have that information. I know that what we reported is obviously covered under what's called the ODAAA, and we report on that. Obviously, when there's a change, we adapt to that. That is something that's more within the purview of our colleagues at Global Affairs. We can look into that further if that's helpful.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Yes, I'd love to get a sense of that. Maybe you can respond later about how much is being spent, and whether or not we're able to count things like privately sponsored classes, things that other countries might not have or that count towards these targets, and how that might add to an increase in what Canada considers an ODA for next year.

In terms of the levels plan, it looks like we're trending toward about 1% of the population. Is there any magic or policy to that number or any considerations that have gone into what appears to be a progression towards that target?

[Matt de Vlieger]

No. All levels targets would be, in a sense, arbitrary. They're choices by governments. Certainly the 1% figure has been advocated by several stakeholders. It's a bit of a clear marker, and people like a clear marker. In terms of some of the questions that your colleague had asked about contributions to GDP or to population growth, 1.1% versus 0.9% wouldn't turn the dial. There's no magic around the 1%.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

In the Atlantic immigration pilot study that was done last year, we tend to see a trend towards immigrants to Canada going from more rural areas to more urban areas, even when they arrive here. There's more direct migration straight towards urban areas. Has any thought or consideration been given towards increasing the amount of immigration that would be targeted ab initio towards rural areas, understanding that half of those people will move to an urban area within five years, so that growth due to immigration across the country would be more balanced?

[Matt de Vlieger]

There's been quite an evolution in the immigration program over some 20 years. Part of that was the advent of the provincial nominee program in 1998. You used to see Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver having 95% of Canada's immigrant landings. That's shifted considerably in the last 20 years. The immigrant admissions of the Prairies and Atlantic Canada have doubled in that time.

The Atlantic pilot that you mentioned is another example of an attempt to really refine that, with more ab initio reception in communities, but also working specifically with those communities and with the employers in those communities to have a specific settlement plan with those immigrants. The idea of retention is a core component. We're always experimenting with new ways of programming different pathways. There's been an evolution, and the Atlantic pilot is a good example of the latest evolution.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Within our immigration plan, it looks like refugee class or humanitarian assistance class is roughly 15% of the total. It appears that a lot of that is heavily weighted towards reunification and privately sponsored. In terms of our international commitments or being good international partners, and in your discussions with your colleagues at other foreign departments and with other bureaucrats, what's the sense about whether or not Canada should be allowing more UNHCR-directed immigration in the refugee class versus the way we've measured it? Are there any particular comments on how that's going and how that evolves?

[Matt de Vlieger]

Maybe I'll start, and then turn to my colleague.

You're right in mentioning the levels plan. The targets for the refugee resettlement category trend upwards over that three-year plan. Internationally, we are a leader in terms of the numbers of resettled refugees referred to us by the UNHCR. The previous witnesses talked about Canada's numbers there. That's significant.

We do have even more significant growth in the private sponsorship category. That's because of some of the demand that's out there. There's quite an outpouring of goodwill in this country, and so there's a large inventory of applications for people wanting to sponsor legitimate refugees.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

When privately sponsored people come in, are they also principally coming from the UNHCR list or are they from a broader category?

When you say people who are in desperate or dire need, would that be their definition or the Canadians' definition, or does it meet the UNHCR definition of their 1.4 million of the 25 million?

[Matt de Vlieger]

The difference between those two categories is that the government-assisted ones are referred to us specifically by the UNHCR versus privately sponsored, but those privately sponsored ones are refugees. They meet the convention definition of refugees.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

But they're not from that subcategory, necessarily, of the 1.4 million who are in dire need of resettlement.

[Jean-Marc Gionet]

There may be an overlap. It's a bit difficult to ascertain in terms of how many of the cases would be on the UNHCR priority list for resettlement, but we know that sometimes we find that there is a privately sponsored case that would also be a UNHCR-referred case.