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?