Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be with you this afternoon, and thank you very much for the opportunity to present in front of the committee today.
I very much welcome your inquiry into these questions, and I am delighted on behalf of the International Organization for Migration to have an opportunity for both a presentation and a discussion with you.
As the chairman said, I will be introducing the subject of the Global Compact for Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration. That compact is the result of member state negotiations in the General Assembly of the United Nations that have taken place over the course of the last year and a half. It will be presented for adoption by member states at the highest level of state and governments on the 10th of December in Marrakesh, Morocco.
The Global Compact for Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration is very much designed to enhance both the safety and security of migration and to reduce both the incidents and the impacts of irregular migration. It is the first intergovernmentally negotiated comprehensive agreement on migration.
Importantly, it is not legally binding. It is designed to be a co-operation framework between states to work together to more effectively manage what is one of the challenges of our time, not only in Canada and North America but in all other parts of the world, which is how to ensure that the movement of people today is safer, more orderly, and more predictable and that we work together to reduce both the abuses that take place and the risks, both to individuals and communities, associated with unsafe and irregular migration.
The key aspects of this co-operation framework are, first of all, again, that is not legally binding. It fully respects the sovereignty of national governments to make their own determinations about national migration policy, including with respect to the question of which non-nationals to admit into their territories.
At the same time, it recognizes that no state acting on its own can effectively address migration, and that by its very nature, migration is a transnational phenomenon. This compact is designed to set out a co-operation framework whereby states can work more effectively together.
It does so through the articulation of some common principles as well as articulating 23 broad objectives aimed at addressing all aspects of migration from the factors that drive migration to the conditions of migration and the need to put in place mechanisms for safe migration—for example, legal labour migration opportunities, opportunities for family migration, opportunities for student visas and things of that sort, while in no way dictating any quotas or any particular requirements on any government.
It also looks to address questions such as the phenomenon of smuggling and trafficking and better law enforcement co-operation as well as co-operation on return and reintegration of migrants who are no longer authorized to stay.
Those are just some examples of the types of objectives that are contained in the compact. As I indicated, there are 23 of them. They set out broad objectives and then under each is a set of best practices or examples of actions that could be taken to realize those objectives. It will be up to each government to decide which of the objectives to pursue, which actions to take to pursue them, and in what order. It is very much a discretionary framework, but it is intended to create a sense of shared solidarity and a commitment to make the migration process work more effectively.
My final point is that more effectively managing migration is not just about governments. While primarily member states have the responsibilities to manage migration not only within their territories but in terms of their co-operation, they will need to do so with a range of other stakeholders: employers, who have a very real role to play in the migration process; recruiters of migrants; migrant and diaspora communities themselves; international organizations to the extent that it is helpful; and, of course, local governments, because so much of migration is experienced and determined by policies and processes at the local level. Mayors and local government officials will be essential.
Let me conclude my opening remarks by saying that this framework that was very much called for and developed by governments—member states throughout the entire United Nations—is of course now very much in the media in some countries. There have been questions raised in some societies about whether this is a good idea and the extent to which it might infringe on the sovereignty of states.
Let me underscore for you that the compact makes absolutely explicit both that it is not legally binding and that it fully recognizes the sovereign jurisdiction and authority of governments to determine their own migration policies. What it intends to do is to actually create more effective policies through states working together, learning from one another, learning from each other's good practices and working together to manage migration to better effect.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to questions that you may wish to pose.