Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the member's question.
I had mentioned three things. First of all, I was privileged to be part of that when I first started at IRCC. The week I started was two weeks after the body of Alan Kurdi washed up on the beach in Turkey, having drowned in the Mediterranean. It was a very difficult time and there were a lot of issues being discussed about how best Canada could contribute to the humanitarian crisis that was taking place. I was there from the get-go in terms of how this started and in terms of the Syrian operation.
I'll share three things. First, government, with the support of civic society, can do tremendous things when there is the political will to do it. We saw that with this initiative.
Second is communications. We, and the minister of the day, the government of the day and members of this committee, had access to information and we were able to be very transparent with how things were going—the good, the bad and the ugly. I think that generated the confidence of the public in terms of what we were doing and how we were going about doing it. I think that was a very important lesson learned. We were publishing stats daily, and we were talking about the challenges we were facing, about capacity issues, and about integration issues. I think it's important to learn that communication and being open and transparent is necessary to generate the confidence of Canadians.
Third is the importance of managing relationships with stakeholders. It's quite interesting. This operation would not have succeeded without the support of civic society, but also not without the support of key stakeholders such as the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR, and of course all the settlement and integration groups throughout the country. The point I'm making is that at a time of need, we need the IOM and the UNHCR to be helpful to us. Having those relationships developed in advance. and maintaining those relationships even when we don't necessarily need to, is an important lesson learned.
Applied to the IRB, I would simply say that we're facing significant challenges right now. If and when there is the will, I believe the conditions for success will materialize and we can get things done.
Also, I intend to work very closely with stakeholders to help inform the way forward. They are often the canaries in the coal mine. Sometimes they know of things before the organization does. I intend, as I have in the past, to maintain strong relationships with our stakeholders to better inform our go-forward agenda.