Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 18th, 2018

[Jennifer Bond]

I think that's right. I think there are a multiplicity of costs that are associated with increasing the processing capacity. Those need to be carefully weighed against the incredible resources that are mobilized in our community.

There are millions of dollars and a lot of Canadians very anxious to engage in supporting refugees at a time when there's clearly an overwhelming need. Figuring out how to leverage that investment, that energy and that compassion in our communities, I think, supports looking at creative models in the way that you're describing.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In your presentation, you mentioned something we've heard from the refugees themselves, which is how they describe their family units. What they consider as their immediate family is very different from western society's consideration, yet their application for family reunification is very limited. It's limited to spouse, underage children, and then, also parents and grandparents, for whom there are streams to accommodate them.

For a lot of refugees, siblings, for example, would not be included in that. If they have an adult child who has a separate family and was not included in the original application, they're not included in the family reunification stream, and so on. Would you think that it would be wise for the government to consider making changes to how we define family, especially in light of the circumstances of how our communities are changing in a global context, and to look at our immigration policy in that regard?

[Jennifer Bond]

One of the things that has happened with the sponsorship stream in particular is this overwhelming use of naming sponsorship cases for those extended family members who aren't able to come through other family reunification mechanisms. I think that the challenge that every country is facing right now is the incredible pressure caused by 25 million refugees and figuring out from a policy perspective which part of that population we're aiming to support on a priority basis. There's obviously significant need.

I'm conscious of the incredible desire of people who are here to reunite with their families. Of course, there are many heartbreaking stories, and those stories are mobilizing sponsorship groups to name family members. They're also creating pressure in our other family reunification streams. However, we have to be mindful that we are also looking for UNHCR referral spaces. This is a different population of non-family-linked cases, where there's an urgent need to move on the basis of some vulnerability. I think there are persuasive policy arguments on the need to also ensure that there's a lot of attention being paid to that stream, so I don't want to suggest that the policy of family reunification should be a priority without also looking at the need to consider UNHCR referrals.

Some people will make an argument for refugees who are going to integrate more quickly because they are the economic drivers. Others will make a very strong policy case for looking at LGBTQ refugees, women at risk, or special interest groups. I'm very conscious of the myriad of policy tensions and the need for a thoughtful consideration of how they work together.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm just—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Okay, I'll give you a little quick one.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm actually talking about an immigration stream, not a refugee stream—resettlement for family reunification. Canada used to have a program that allowed for immigration streams for family reunification, for siblings for example. That's how my family came, by the way, but that policy no longer exists. You cannot make an application for a sibling for family reunification purposes.

If we were to allow for that kind of stream to be reopened, would that not alleviate the pressures for the refugee stream?

[Jennifer Bond]

I'm going to revert to my previous answer. I agree with you on the family reunification point. I'll just point to the fact that there's a tremendous number of policy drivers that are being balanced, not only within the refugee policy but within the immigration policy. I agree with you on the need to look at family reunification, but I think we need to do that in conjunction with looking at our approach to all of the streams, including the humanitarian streams, which are equally important and need to be considered in their own right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Just before Mr. Ayoub begins, I'm going to slip in a question here. It's on terminology. I notice your terminology, and I've had trouble with terminology. Pulling back, we had a witness—not at this study but at a previous study we did—who expressed grave concerns about the privatization of our refugee sponsorship program, as though that were negative.

Your use of the word “community” as opposed to “private” seems very intentional. We've called them “PSRs”, “private”, “community”, “naming” or “named,” all those kinds of names. You've chosen “community”. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems that it's because of the benefit that's conferred on both the refugee and the community.

Am I right on that?

[Jennifer Bond]

The community language is definitely what's being used in the global context. The reference to private refugees is quite unique to Canada. I think it is a more accurate term. It's not about who pays. It's not about privatizing the cost in the way that term suggests. It's about engaging community and engaging broadly a wide range of citizens.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Okay.

We'll come up with a better BVOR, because the emphasis on the visa officer has always bothered me. It doesn't make any sense. I just don't like that name. GAR is a terrible name. One of the recommendations that I'm hoping the committee can work on is getting better terminology, because maybe it's important.

Mr. Ayoub.

[Ramez Ayoub, Thérèse-De Blainville, Lib.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In your introduction, Ms. Bond, you said that Canada has the chance to become a world leader, which it is doing properly and reasonably. At the same time, we are very critical of our own approaches. Coming from Quebec, I would say we are under even greater pressure in recent years. We are as generous as we are concerned.

So there are two sponsorship programs, one public and one private. What do you think of these two programs in terms of integration, accountability and a grassroots movement? Which is better? Is one eating up the other? Should we devote more energy to one than the other?

[Jennifer Bond]

Thank you for your question.

I will answer in English, if you don't mind.

[Ramez Ayoub]

That's fine.

[Jennifer Bond]

I understand that question to be about the balance between publicly supported and privately sponsored or community-sponsored refugees. I think the data clearly shows that community-sponsored refugees do better on a variety of integration outcomes, and we also get this really important impact on our communities. My first answer, then, is that robust community engagement is a good model. We should be very dedicated in Canada and globally to trying to get more communities involved rather than tightly held, professionalized, government-funded models.

That said, as with any policy, a whole bunch of pieces have been put together in Canada. Currently, Canada does most of its UNHCR-referred refugees through a government-supported model. I don't want to suggest that my preference for broad community engagement is also a preference for named refugees over UNHCR-referred refugees. I want to distinguish those elements of the Canadian program. I think it's clear that engaging citizens is very positive. I don't think that necessarily means the front-end stream has to be aligned the way it currently is in Canada.

[Ramez Ayoub]

The strength of the private sponsorship program is also its weakness: the ability to choose. This program helps individuals who are chosen, or families who choose refugees, family members or friends. On the other hand, the program serves refugees who do not know anyone in Canada and who are therefore not chosen.

We are talking about refugees, people in distress. We also touched on processing times earlier, which are very long. My community welcomed a refugee family recently and it took more than two and a half years. For other refugees we are sponsoring, we are still waiting.

We have heard from other witnesses that some refugees who are in the camps ultimately leave because life is too hard there. It is endless for those who decide to start the process over again. Sometimes we never see them again.

How can we assess the success of a program, and by what criteria? What aspects of the sponsorship programs should be improved, whether public or private and whether they are for refugees with UNHCR identity papers or not?

[Jennifer Bond]

I'm going to again provide two quick answers to those helpful comments.

The first is that in most of the other countries I mentioned, naming or selection is not a feature of the sponsorship model. In the United Kingdom; in Germany, which is not yet online but will be with a 500-person pilot; in Argentina; in Ireland, soon to be online; they will be taking UNHCR-referred refugees and putting them into sponsorship groups in the same way we do with our BVOR program. They are taking the BVOR part of Canada's program and putting that version of it into their own communities.

All of this is to say, I don't think the benefits of sponsorship are contingent on choice. I think there's a number of other policy discussions around whether choice is useful, particularly to accomplish policy goals like family reunification where there's a lack of other infrastructure. I want to separate that conversation from the conversation of the benefits of engaging community.

The second is around how to measure success. It's an excellent question. There have been imperfect metrics that vary significantly by country. Is integration success about employment, early employment, language acquisition, how the kids are doing in school, whether the family is out in the community and engaging? If so, how do we measure all these things?

It's a very active debate. People agree that Canada is a world leader in integration but when you look at the metrics being used it's apples to oranges in many different jurisdictions.

I think sponsorship forces us to add a different series of questions, not only around integration but also the degree of community acceptance. What has the experience of the community been?

When we've been looking at the introduction of sponsorship programs globally and then considering what's happening in Canada as part of that work, we're interested not only in counting resettlement spaces but also counting the number of people who have been touched in a positive way by supporting the newcomer. That is a different way of conceiving resettlement. I want to emphasize from my opening comments that Canada has been doing this, and no one else has. When we look at the collapse of the U.S. resettlement system at this moment, the lack of community engagement has been a crippling component of what is happening there.

In Canada two million to 10 million people have been engaged in refugee protection. The United States has had a much bigger, a much more professionalized system and has had a fraction of the number of people engaged. That's been a real weakness of that system.

I want to emphasize metrics not only about refugee success but also around community success. Do our communities welcome this? Are they being supported in this act of welcome and integration?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Mr. Maguire.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentation. It's most enlightening. You've worked with the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative here. Out of that I understand, a guidebook was created. Could you tell us what kind of connections you've had with those sponsorship groups? How many have used the guide? How is it being used? Have you heard of any private community sponsorship groups?

Have you been connected with them in those areas?

[Jennifer Bond]

That's great.

The guidebook is a creation of the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative that tries to break down the magic of sponsorship into dozens of questions for other countries to look at when they consider these programs. If you haven't seen it you're very welcome to do so. It's available in four languages on refugeesponsorship.org.

The viewership on that site is around 25,000. We know the average length of stay on the guidebook is close to 45 minutes, which is quite long for a website. We did develop the guidebook in consultation with community stakeholders, including a wide consultation with community groups across the country. That's where the expertise on these programs lies. We benefited from their feedback in all parts of that process.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Can you give us an example or a couple of examples of the challenges they face in sponsoring refugees? I'm sure you must have addressed that in the book.

[Jennifer Bond]

Sponsorship is hard. It's very human work. Sponsorship groups often experience cross-cultural exchange issues. There's often surprise at the lack of excitement that newcomers will feel after their initial month here. Months two, three, five or six can be really hard. Sponsorship groups don't know how to handle that. Sponsorship groups struggle with language where there are big language acquisition gaps, and with dealing with people who have been deeply traumatized.

The benefit of the program is team problem-solving and wide community support in solving those issues together. We see thousands of different solutions being developed by the sponsorship groups as they face each of those hurdles.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I've been very involved in at least one and have knowledge of more community groups that, in groups of five or other groups, have sponsored and worked with refugees and immigrants coming into Canada. There's a big difference there.

Some of the wait times have been long. You referred to that earlier. We've seen people taking up to seven years to come in from Yemen. The experience I've had, and what you've indicated, is that with the community sponsorships that wait time is cut way down. Can you elaborate on your thoughts on why and what we can do better with some of the government-implemented ones?

[Jennifer Bond]

I want to make sure I understood the question. Is it in terms of the sponsorship wait times being seven years?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Yes.

[Jennifer Bond]

I think I partially addressed this question. I also agreed with some of the suggestions of your colleague, Ms. Kwan, on improving some of the operational capacity.

It is absolutely right that some geographical areas are under-serviced by Canadian visa offices. Investing in getting resources there and getting people there on rotation more quickly are operational fixes that would solve that. I think we've also talked about the need to look at the way the operational capacity sits against the parliamentary approved targets.

I see those as the two primary barriers to decreasing wait times.