Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 18th, 2016

[Michael Casasola]

Sure. Our focus is on access to asylum.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

My colleague Mr. Ehsassi brought this up a few minutes ago when he spoke. Just so I understand, you were never consulted, you were never reached out to by any member of the previous government to discuss the Yazidi situation, particularly after what happened in August 2014 in Sinjar, to your recollection.

[Michael Casasola]

Again, I would caution that I'm being transparent in saying that I don't recall it. That being said, there are many other avenues. They could have spoken with our headquarters. As I emphasized, our discussions are discreet with governments.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

But there's nothing that stands out.

According to documents tabled in the House of Commons, IRCC officials were instructed by the then minister of immigration to select refugees based on religion and ethnicity through what was called the area of focus process.

Did this, in your view, contravene the established practice and policy of working with the UNHCR to select the most vulnerable?

[Michael Casasola]

I'm not actually familiar with the area of focus. Certainly we had a lot of discussions with the previous government about our resettlement program, both numerically and in terms of where we selected refugees from. Some of it was very operational, to be quite honest, but again, I wouldn't be able to speak about the nature of any sort of recommendations that were made to us. They fall within the discretion of our discussions.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I'm interested in the concept of vulnerability. I wonder if you could speak on the dangers of applying particular markers of identity in terms of privileging vulnerable peoples, and also specifically the implications of that for other refugees or IDPs. Could you speak on that?

[Michael Casasola]

Sure. I think I made some related remarks earlier, but I may not have been clear at the time.

Independent criteria are used, such as the refugee convention, which doesn't say if you're this religion, you're a refugee, but if you're that religion, you're not. It says if you're being persecuted based on your religion, it's one of the grounds on which you can be recognized as a refugee. Certainly there is the danger in some parts of the world for the refugee community itself if a particular ethnic group is receiving resettlement or receiving assistance or receiving something special that is separate from others simply based on some non-protection need. When we've used these independent categories, this is the way we've also gotten support from the refugees themselves. They understand it more clearly. It's because this person has this problem, or it's because the person is a single mother who has no other male protector. They understand that concept.

The other issue, of course, is the host governments whom we have to work with, which has been alluded to. There's even just the challenge of the ability to get exit permits. I won't name names, and it wasn't Canada, but when countries seemed to have policies that were focused on a particular ethnic group, one instance I can recall is that a country of asylum wouldn't give exit permits for a period of time. You have to be able to navigate a whole series of relationships. When you're able to identify and say, “This is based on independent vulnerable criteria, which we told you about from day one, that when we come in here, we're going to look for the refugees with these particular needs, because they're being detained, they're facing refoulement, they're going to be killed inside your country of asylum”, then we tend to have universal support.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I just think of a situation where, if particular markers are given privilege, you could have someone who doesn't belong to that category going through in a much more vulnerable position, let me put it that way. I worry about what happens if we privilege particular markers of identity. I think it could create an even worse situation. That's my fear. I know that you spoke on that, but I think it's critical to the entire discussion.

[Michael Casasola]

To be fair, though, and again, to be transparent with the committee, there have been instances where, for example, we know that a particular ethnic group or even a particular religious group is going to have a higher than usual acceptance rate. They're going to go through refugee status determination, but because we know that they have a higher acceptance rate, we can do a more streamlined or simplified process, whereas others who may have traditionally had a lower acceptance rate—again, this is for refugee status determination—might undergo a more rigorous determination process.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

A question about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you. The time is up.

Mr. Kent, for five minutes, please.

[Peter Kent]

I'd just like to continue along the path of considering the vulnerable, the persecuted, the minorities who have managed to escape Syria and Iraq but have failed to enter the UNHCR camps for designation because they fear discrimination or worse—perhaps renewed persecution in those camps—and are living in the local economies, for example, in Jordan or in Lebanon. Most specifically, we've had information from ministers of the Kurdish autonomous region who have come to Ottawa in the last few months and complained—I think that's the fair word—that many Yazidis and others, including Christian minorities, who have not received UNHCR designation are not in the camps and are living in the local economy and are not supported by the government of Iraq, and that the Kurdish autonomous government, the regional government, is having to carry the load.

I understand they are still technically internally displaced people, but they are in a unique situation in which the government of Iraq is not accepting the responsibility that it should in their regard. What is the UNHCR doing about that?

[Michael Casasola]

I can't speak specifically to our program in Iraq in relation to Yazidis, because many of those elements are technical, and I hope you'll understand.

Certainly as far as the question of being afraid is concerned, I referred to that earlier and I would disaggregate the situation of IDPs versus the refugee population, because, again, when it's a refugee situation, we have the convention and our abilities are a bit stronger. To be quite honest, we count on countries like the United States and Canada, our supporters, our generous supporters, to also back us up when we talk, and they do, to their credit. They will do interventions with governments directly as a group and such.

But in terms of the situations in camps in the region, I'm a bit concerned about the.... Again, I'd love to have more details because I hear this sort of generic talk that “we're afraid” and such, and sometimes we say there are camps and technically there are actually no camps, for example, in some places. I know that one of the challenges we've had is that, for example, in Turkey we've been trying to sort out with the Yazidi population and the Turkish officials ways that they can have better levels of assistance. We have situations where they'll register with us, but they haven't registered with the Turkish officials, and again, registration with the Turkish officials will get the assistance. But they don't want to move from the location they're in and the Turkish officials are also.... I don't want to be critical of the Turkish officials because they're hosting 2.8 million refugees—2.8 million Syrians, and many others as well. They've been incredibly generous. But sometimes it's just navigating these bridges of, if we could only get the Turkish officials to be there, or the Yazidi community to be willing to leave one location, because they want to be together as a group, so that they could properly register so we could get the assistance, we could get the information, so we could make the referrals.

Sometimes it's as operational as that.

[Peter Kent]

We've seen with the current government's accelerated refugee program the initial 10,00 of the 25,000 or so already in the process of private sponsorship. We know that with private sponsors across the board, many of them with specific focus on ethnic or religious groups and with family ties, there's a backlog and millions of dollars in escrow payments waiting to accept these refugee claimants to Canada. The government has put a cap on these private sponsorships, denied them in some cases, or not allowed quotas.

I'm just wondering what your recommendation would be, not just to this government, but to any government with regard to that welcoming ability, given the success of private sponsorships to accept, integrate, and successfully resettle refugees as contributing members of society. What would your advice be?

[Michael Casasola]

As I mentioned, I am a big fan of the private sponsor program. I have invested a great part of my life trying to privately sponsor refugees myself.

I think your committee was very generous when the high commissioner came to Canada and you hosted a lunch with him. When he was here in Canada—and he reflected to me on his experience subsequently—one of the things he came back with was that he was incredibly impressed by the generous spirit in Canada. One of the things I would say about the private sponsor program this year is that my concern about it isn't so much the backlog, but as the high commissioner said, that we want to keep the spirit alive, that we want to keep this strong support. We don't want people to come away frustrated and such. We want to maintain as much as possible.

That said, Canada is going to resettle a record number of refugees this year if it fulfills its plans—more than has ever been done before. So these are the tensions.

I don't want to be overly critical, but I know there are lots of groups in society who want to sponsor refugees—I'm part of one myself—but at the same time, Canada is bringing a record number this year. So I think the question is how we can sustain and ensure that this isn't just a moment, a statistical blip, but that we're effectively starting a new chapter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Tabbara, you have five minutes, please.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you. I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Virani.

I just want to thank you for all the work you have been doing.

My question is how we identify vulnerability. The situation in Iraq and Syria is changing on a daily basis. As we've seen recently, there was a bombing of more than 250 civilians after Eid. When there's intense fighting in certain regions, maybe in Fallujah and Basra, is there a criterion to know where the vulnerability is for refugees—

[Michael Casasola]

Sorry, forgive me; I didn't mean to cut off your question.

There's first the questions of protection, assistance, and such, but then for the purpose of resettlement, again you're looking for the individual as recognized as a refugee. We all accept that the people are in danger because they may be killed, but then in the country of asylum, recognizing that we're only able to resettle—with the spaces given to us by the entire international community—about one in 10 of the people we identify.... So you have 60 million refugees, 1.19 million of those we've identified need resettlement, and there are only 120,000 spaces.

So among those people in the country of asylum, we're then having to say who's in danger or whose needs aren't being met?

Now, it's possible given the scenario that the people experienced something so terribly egregious that, when they were resettled, there are mental health problems as a result of that, and those are people whom we would call survivors of violence and torture.

I can't recall if I mentioned this already. Up until the Syrians overtook them, the Iraqis were the largest number of refugees coming to Canada, and the largest category for which people were selected was survivors of violence and torture.

We look for things like that, survivors of violence and torture, and the most common categories are refugee women at risk, survivors of violence and torture. Any more common than that is legal and physical protection needs. The people are in danger in the country of asylum, they might be a minority, and they might be in danger in the context of that; and we will resettle them because of that, anywhere in the world. They might be facing refoulement, forced return to their country of origin, or they may be detained because refugees are simply supposed to be detained because they are refugees.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I like how you mentioned previously about the processing of the application, and it's depending on what context they are in and it's regardless of religion, ethnicity, and their beliefs. If we start prioritizing based on religion, what type of challenges will we face, and what will the UNHCR face?

[Michael Casasola]

It would depend on context.

We would be looking for independent criteria always when we do this. Now, it's possible because we have had particular ethnic groups who because of their faith have been more likely to be found to be refugees, but they're referred on the basis of their legal and physical protection needs, on the basis that she's a woman at risk, for example.

The challenge most often comes with how they will be treated in the country of asylum and whether you will even actually get those visas for those refugees to be able to even be resettled, if you wanted to resettle them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Go ahead, Mr. Virani.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have one and a half minutes.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Let's just pick up on this point about survivors of violence and torture. That was the basic grouping that the UNHCR was identifying most frequently coming out of Iraq and Syria in the past few years.

[Michael Casasola]

Again, when we looked at cases independently and we said you're different from everybody else because you have survived violence and torture, that was the most common reason, on an individual basis, that Iraqis were referred to Canada.