Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2018

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate my colleague's passion. We have a lot of questions, but just seven minutes, which is very little.

Let me begin with you, Mr. Clayton. I'm not sure I understood correctly so please correct me if I am wrong, but you said that the best solution for the integration of refugees is ultimately to send them back home. You said that would be an ultimate objective.

Did I understand you correctly? I don't want to presume that is what you said.

[John Clayton]

I could go back to my notes and refer to it, but I believe that is.... Most displaced people I've talked to want to return to their homeland, yes.

[Ramez Ayoub]

Okay. That's their point of view.

That's right.

Similarly, for a country such as Canada, which wants to welcome refugees, what is the best way of doing that and how can it judge its success if the starting premise is that these people eventually have to return home?

[John Clayton]

I think there's a distinction between the foreign policy efforts and the foreign affairs efforts to create or remove the root causes that can allow people to return, and the resettlement issues of determining, with the criteria that are available, those who will never be able to be resettled. There are two dynamics that play simultaneously here and that speak to migration and immigration.

[Ramez Ayoub]

From what I understood, we were talking about refugees, and not immigration. Immigration is another story. People who want to immigrate usually take steps themselves, whereas refugees are in a vulnerable position, fleeing violence and intimidation, and they are fighting for their lives.

I am an MP from Quebec, a province that is trying to see how to reduce the number of immigrants and refugees, perhaps in the short term, to give us time to integrate them better so they do not have to go back home or settle elsewhere. In our case, we want a majority of francophone refugees.

How can we balance all that?

[John Clayton]

I think it comes down to the resettlement process in terms of the criteria that are being established and how people are being interviewed and their intentions and situations. I know that there are people who want to come here to Canada. So many of my friends who are from other parts of the world and have made this their home are excited about living here.

In terms of the UN referral process, I don't know how you encourage them, or do they establish different criteria to help determine who those people are who really are going to integrate and, for your particular context in Quebec, fit in and satisfy your expectations?

[Ramez Ayoub]

Ms. Vogt and Ms. Sears, do you have anything to add? What are your thoughts on these two kinds of integration? Do you share that view?

[Anna Vogt]

I think it also depends on what type of situation we're talking about. For example, many people may be in a protected situation of displacement—or even housed in refugee camps—who never resettle to Canada either, where the most durable solution for them may be to possibly return home to their country. I think it is a bit more complex than people resettling in Canada, going through local integration and then returning back to their country. How are we looking at the different groups of people, not even in terms of who a refugee is and who a migrant is, but even globally in terms of where people are located and, as well, their own desires to possibly return?

I think integration is a great step that Canada does take with newcomers to make sure they are part of Canadian society. Also, I think that encouraging integration measures within other countries that face large asylum-seeker or migrant populations as well is a really good step, especially in places where there may never be the possibility of someone even having the choice to return home.

Rebekah, did you have something to add?

[Rebekah Sears]

Maybe I would just emphasize Anna's earlier points in her presentation about the importance of people making the choice of whether or not to migrate.

Sorry, I just lost my train of thought.

[Ramez Ayoub]

I will share my time with my colleague since he has a question.

We want to save lives by playing a role in prevention internationally. Could moving a person to a neighbouring country be a short-term solution?

When we bring in refugees temporarily, I think there is a conflict between safety issues and the degree of belonging to Canadian society as an indicator of immigration success. In my opinion, there are no half-measures: people come to Canada because they want to become 100% Canadian, or not.

I will turn it over to my colleague.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thanks very much, Ramez.

Just to the MCC, based on the government's commitment and intention to resettle 1,000 vulnerable women and girls, many of whom will have been subjected to gender-based violence and other forms of persecution, do you have any advice on partners to work with and processes to ensure this is done effectively and efficiently, and that the results are achieved as per the commitment made?

[Rebekah Sears]

Are there particular regions where this commitment is coming from?

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

This is effectively the question I have. Do you have any recommendations or advice on where and who to work with and how this can be effectively achieved so that we can resettle those 1,000 women and girls?

[Anna Vogt]

Yes. Actually a few years ago there was a direct connection between Colombian refugees and Canadian Mennonite churches here in Canada. MCC actually helped facilitate the sponsorship of a number of Colombian refugees directly from Colombia.

One of the processes that made it very effective was the fact that there was that direct connection with the sending country, so that we were actually able to provide information even about trauma awareness to the families and the church groups that were resettling these refugees and walking alongside of them as they adapted to life in Canada. That ability to share that cultural information, that contextual information, that information about what even maybe triggers in their situation as they adapt to Canada, actually made that situation much more sustainable in terms of people's ability to integrate into Canada and to feel that people were walking alongside of them in each step of the process from going through the claims to arriving in Canada.

Those issues of how can we be aware and intentional about where there may be local community partners that can also help to share information about the situations where people may come from and then help that integration into Canadian society I think would be key.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

We go to Mr. Maguire for five minutes to bring us home.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I acknowledge the fact that both of your organizations, Mr. Clayton, Ms. Vogt and Ms. Sears, do great work in regard to resettlement, and thank you for your presentations today.

One of the things that we learned, and in my opportunity this June, was that when you're in refugee camps and you're talking with them, they would like to resettle, but the last option is to go to a third country. They'd like to resettle in their own home areas.

What drove me to this question is, Ms. Vogt, that you mentioned IDPs in Colombia are seven million, and then you backed it up, Ms. Sears, by saying that there are twice as many IDPs as there are refugees in the world, and there are 64 million refugees. This leads me to ask that even with all the successes that each of you have had, and there are government refugee programs that have been successful as well, what's the biggest need you would see to be able to make sure that we were able to do as much, or a percentage, at least, share from Canada's opportunities within this country, to expand that?

Is it needs for languages, different things when they get here, or is it just the fact that we need to make sure that we have a sound process of dealing with who can come to Canada from the refugees camps, and what other financial resources would be best used as well?

[Anna Vogt]

Part of it is also what I started talking about at the beginning: addressing these root causes of migration. Again, it's putting more financing into local conflict prevention and trying to actually look at partnerships with diverse actors, and these increased investments, as well, in mediation in situations where, because of migrant flows, there may be more risks of conflict. It's looking at that global lens and seeing resettlement as one tool within Canada's tool box of addressing forced migration, but there are also many ways that Canada can be involved.

Even in looking at Colombia, with all of these different IDPs, it's recognizing that local organizations throughout the countries are the organizations that deal with the burden of actually receiving these IDPs, especially because there isn't as much ability of the UNHCR to be involved because it is an internal displacement. How does the Canadian government recognize and support these local organizations without having all of these people needing to come to Canada?

I think Rebekah would like to answer.

[Rebekah Sears]

Just in addition, there's the burden on host countries, especially those surrounding conflict areas. For example, I think that 85% of Syrian refugees are still in the region, in surrounding countries like Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, so the burden is on those host countries.

As Anna said, resettlement is one option, but it's not necessarily what people want to do. It's not necessarily the best thing to do to resettle all of these refugees, but to support the host countries so they will be able to support refugees and displaced peoples, and again, go through the local organizations, especially when it comes to internally displaced, because often the problem is with the government.

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

Yes, thank you. It's like we saw in Uganda.

Mr. Clayton, could you elaborate on that from your end as well?

[John Clayton]

Yes, Mr. Maguire. I think the question for the Government of Canada and for the people who are assembled here in this committee is whether you want to go wide or whether you want to go narrow. We have to be realistic about the resources that Canada has available. We can take a shotgun approach and spread ourselves very thin, or we can decide on some very specific initiatives that we would like to tackle.

I go back to the example of what was invested in the comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan and South Sudan. Notwithstanding the problems that currently exist in South Sudan today, I believe a large amount of initiative and financial resources went to solving, contributing to the solution of a problem.

What do we want to do? Do we want to go wide, or do we want to go narrow? I can't answer that question. I think we ought to be realistic in terms of what it is that we can accomplish as a country and not try to be all things to all people, but dig into some specifics deeply and intentionally.

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

Thank you.

My last question is in regard to some comments that you made, Ms. Vogt, and you mentioned them again here now on conflict prevention. That seems to be prevalent in situations throughout Africa as well, but you're saying it's very predominant in Latin America. We're seeing that. There are people migrating out of their countries right now as well. As we speak, they're on the highway.

What, in this situation, needs to be done? What, in your view, would be the best way to maximize the funds that we are presently using in those areas? You mentioned food. You mentioned sport. What is the best way to resettle these people and use those funds to reduce the conflict that you talked about?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have 30 seconds.

[Anna Vogt]

Great, this is easy.

I think it's also, again, that connection with local partners, people who have a deep understanding of their own area, of their own context, the people who are invested in creating change within their own environment. How can we look across sectors to identify some of these different groups, and then actually work with them as they work on doing conflict prevention? I think that, from all of the examples I've seen across Latin America, has been the most sustainable in the areas where we have seen the most change or the most possibilities for peace building to take place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

We need to end there.

Thank you, all, very much.

Thank you, committee. We will resume on Thursday.

The meeting is adjourned.