That's right. It'll all be deep background, of course.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm pleased to see that this committee is engaged in this important examination of migration studies and opportunities, and especially its focus on the causes of forced and voluntary migration, which is what I was invited to speak on.
I'm here to speak specifically about the challenge of irregular border crossings, drawing on my experience over the last 15 years in Europe. I believe the problem in Canada today, in this area, is similar in some important ways to the irregular-crossing problems that the European Union has faced on and off for the last 15 years. The scale is not at all similar, of course, but the migrant populations and their reasons for attempting irregular crossings are similar, and I'd argue that the solutions that have proven most successful in Europe have a lot of relevance to Canada.
As I said, I've had 15 years of experience examining this problem. Since 2003-04, I've interviewed migrants preparing to board boats and rafts in Tunisia, in Egypt and in Libya. I've spoken to them upon arrival in Spain, Greece, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and I've spent a lot of time with policy-makers, immigration officials and scholars working on these questions.
I'd like to address the following questions: What sort of people are likely to become irregular migrants? What causes people to choose irregular pathways and entry points despite the far greater risk and expense? What policies have been successful in ending or reducing irregular migration? I have five observations.
The first is that irregular migrants, whether claiming asylum or otherwise, tend to be people with resources and information who are making a high-risk investment with high stakes for their families and communities. They do not come from the poorest countries, and they don't come from the poorest communities in the countries that they come from. Irregular crossings are expensive, upwards of 2,000 euros per person to get on one of those rafts, and we have anecdotal evidence that Canada and U.S. crossings involve fairly large payments to smugglers and other agents. Many migrants have borrowed heavily to make the trip. At a minimum, they hope for a return on this investment. Understanding this can help shape policies of return and deterrence.
Irregular migrants have been informed through text messages and social media links that they have a good chance of supporting their families and returning that investment. Sometimes this information is accurate economic and labour market information. Migrants tend to go to the places that have labour shortages. They tend to avoid the countries with weak economies. Sometimes it's mythological. Sometimes it speaks to weaknesses in the system. The idea that was discussed earlier in this meeting, that known delay times in processing can be drivers of demand, seems to have a lot of basis in the information that drives migrants themselves. Certainly, anecdotally, I've heard that, and there's scholarship to support it.
Second, people generally choose irregular migration because legal, generally short-term pathways have been closed. The entire European migration crisis began in the early 2000s, because the EU, after the Schengen agreement, eliminated short-term agricultural labour visas for Africans. Suddenly, a legal, temporary migration regime was transformed into an illegal, long-term smuggling industry to replace that demand. Rather than paying $150 for an airplane ticket and having to repay that through one season of work, people were paying 2,000 or 3,000 euros for a crossing and having to stay longer to repay that. That industry took on a life of its own. One recent data analysis by scholars from Oxford University found that every 10% increase in short-stay visa rejection leads to a 4% to 7% increase in irregular border entries. There's a direct link between tightening temporary entry and the increase in demand for irregular crossings.
Third, increasing border security does not reduce irregular entry, and in some cases it increases it. This effect has been observed repeatedly in Europe and the United States. Now, there may be reasons to increase border security, but reducing irregular crossings is almost never a result of doing that, by any significant degree. According to Oxford University scholar Hein de Haas, border restrictions tend to interrupt circulation and push migrants into permanent settlement, often into more irregular routes, further criminalizing the process.
Fourth, creating legal pathways, even very limited and restricted ones, has been shown to reduce irregular entry, often dramatically. The most studied example of that was Spain after its crisis of 2004 to 2006, when there were many tens of thousands of people crossing the Mediterranean into Spain. It introduced a set of policies that reduced those numbers to very little at all. Chief among them was a legal pathway. Not great in number, but along with co-operation with both sending countries, intermediary countries and normalization programs.
It was found that people wishing to migrate, even if they thought there was a one in 20 chance of making it through a legal process, if that legal process existed, that one in 20 chance was better than spending 3,000 euros, and having a high chance of dying across the Mediterranean. Spain remains not a major destination partly because of this set of policies. It's worth examining. It's worth noting that the global compact on refugees also contains language to create shifting irregular claimants into legal pathways.
Fifth, speeding up the process can reduce demand, not just determination and appeal systems. As we discussed, one of the things that migrants discuss in these text messages and so on is the fact that if a country is known to take three years to complete a refugee determination system, then an appeal, that could be enough time to make enough of a living to repay your investment and so on. That is known.
The return system is also important to consider. Paying unqualified irregular entrants to return to their home country is something that European countries have begun to embrace. It seems to go against intuition. It's seems to be politically risky. In the Canadian example, an irregular entrant who has applied for asylum, has been rejected, has appealed and lost the appeal, and has gone through the whole process is eventually handcuffed to an RCMP officer on an airplane. You may have spent $100,000 on that person. Giving them $3,000 or something and an agreement with the sending country to receive them, assuming that you don't place them in greater danger, can be much quicker. Germany has had some reasonable success with those return programs since the 2015-16 crisis. It's worth examining those.
In summary, we need to realize that irregular migration is a market decision made by the people making the crossing. There are legitimate refugees in the mix. The number in Europe seems to have been 40% to 50% during the peak of its crisis. It seems to be the proportion in Canada as well.
It's unfair to the legitimate refugees to have a system that forces them to make irregular crossings. That places them in physical danger and puts a strain on the system. Of course, it's dangerous for the public support of the system. As well, it drives up demand among people who are not legitimate refugees who may not know about legal pathways that exist, who may try to take advantage of legal pathways if they do exist, and who may be legitimate economic immigrants otherwise.
The overwhelming lesson from the 15 years of European experience is that it is possible to reduce irregular volumes by creating legal pathways, and changing the market incentives for migration.
Thank you, Chair, and I welcome questions.