Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 19th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

If there is additional information and recommendations that you'd like to provide, please do so through the clerk of the committee. We would welcome any information that you didn't have an opportunity to bring forward.

I'd like to thank the panel for their powerful testimony. In particular, I'd like to thank Ms. Nadia Taha for your courage in sharing the personal horrors of genocide that you've experienced, your insights, and for your recommendations.

Thank you so much.

We will now suspend for a couple of minutes to wait for the second panel to arrive.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Welcome back.

Appearing before us today in the second panel are Ms. Gloria Nafziger from Amnesty International; Mr. Chad Walters and Mr. Paul Tolnai from Foundation of Hope; and Ms. Christine Morrissey from Rainbow Refugee, who will be sharing her time with Mr. Dylan Mazur of the Vancouver Association for Survivors of Torture.

Thank you for accepting the invitation to appear before our committee.

I'll begin with Ms. Nafziger for seven minutes, please.

[Gloria Nafziger, Refugee and Migrant Coordinator, Toronto Office, Amnesty International]

Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to be here this afternoon. Amnesty International would like to thank the honourable committee members for the opportunity to comment on the important subject of how Canada can best support vulnerable groups in inaccessible regions. Our briefing will provide some background on the issue of vulnerable groups, with a particular focus on internally displaced people, or IDPs. Before offering recommendations for immigration reform, or suggestions to better assist these populations, I would like to review some of the international law standards and background.

Unlike the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol, which provides special protection to individuals seeking asylum who are outside their countries of origin, there is currently no global binding international law instrument specifically addressing the plight of IDPs. However, this does not mean that international law is silent on the issue. General international human rights law and, where applicable, international humanitarian law establish clear obligations for states to protect IDPs and other vulnerable populations still residing within their countries of origin.

Furthermore, the specific protection needs of IDPs and state obligations towards them have been clearly delineated in soft international law instruments as well as certain binding regional instruments. Although efforts to further develop an international legal framework for IDP protection have focused primarily on articulating state obligations towards IDPs located within their own borders, international law has long recognized the crucial role of international actors. According to the UN guiding principles on internal displacement, international humanitarian organizations and other appropriate actors have the right to offer assistance to IDPs, and the consent cannot arbitrarily be withheld. The principle and that right of civilian populations to receive humanitarian relief have been recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross as reflecting customary law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.

There is therefore a clear recognition that, under international law, international actors have an important role to play in responding to the protection needs of IDPs. In many circumstances, even most circumstances, state authorities have played an active role in persecuting groups under their jurisdiction and cannot be relied upon to fully protect these populations. Even when they are willing to aid IDPs within their borders, states often suffer from institutional incapacity due to conflict or natural disasters. The sheer number of IDPs can often prove overwhelming to international aid efforts as well. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the number of conflict-related IDPs has surpassed the number of refugees every year since 1990.

The centre also found that the number of conflict-related IDPs has increased significantly in recent years, reaching the astronomical figure in 2015 of 40.8 million persons internally displaced by conflict.

Responding to the protection and humanitarian assistance needs of IDPs requires action on many fronts. A comprehensive response certainly must include responding generously to UN appeals and providing expertise and training to national institutions. For Canada, it should also include facilitating legal migration to allow individuals to escape situations of generalized violence and targeted persecution.

As a part of its response, Canada could consider the following measures. It could ensure that visa policy does not serve as a barrier to individuals accessing protection in Canada, either by lifting visa requirements for countries with significant protection needs or by ensuring there is an alternative procedure for individuals seeking to travel to Canada to access protection. It could enhance family reunification schemes by removing financial barriers to families in Canada who wish to sponsor family members who are IDPs and living in refugee-like situations. Canada could adopt a broader definition of the family for the purpose of family class sponsorships, again with respect to IDPs. Eliminating the excluded family member rule to ensure that initial omissions in immigration applications do not necessarily lead to lifelong separations is very important. This would be true for IDPs and many refugees. Canada could permit private groups and groups of five sponsorships for individuals who are internally displaced.

There is a need to streamline the application process and forms that are used in sponsorship referrals, as the current system is often onerous for private sponsors and unable to be responsive in a crisis. Canada could consider other humanitarian admission programs, including flexibility in the provision of student and work visas. Canada could also consider being flexible in the provision of temporary residence permits that would allow one to travel to Canada, where a refugee claim may be likely to follow. Finally there's providing the necessary resources to visa posts, which are responsible for processing all applications.

In addition to reviewing the current resettlement and family reunification programs, the committee could also recommend the creation of new immigration programs designed specifically for vulnerable groups still residing in their countries of origin. In the past Canada has done so through the programs such as the political prisoners and oppressed persons class and more recently the source country class. The latter was repealed in 2011.

Amnesty International supports the reintroduction of a source country program based on objective risk criteria. A government review of the source country class identified a number of shortcomings in that program, including resource constraints where a reliable case referral mechanism does not exist in a particular country. A reformed program, with strong coordination with humanitarian partners, could play a very important protection role for IDPs. The source country program was limited to specific countries, which were listed through regulatory amendments. We recommend a more open approach, not limited to designated countries, which would allow the government and humanitarian partners to be more flexibly responsive to situations and case processing of need.

Let me close by saying what is perhaps obvious, but nonetheless very relevant. It is so important that Canada open up flexible programs that respond to urgent protection needs of IDPs and other vulnerable groups, and do so by including a source country program. None of that, however, should ever detract from the resources and the commitments that are made to our current refugee protection and resettlement programs.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Nafziger.

Mr. Walters and Mr. Tolnai, seven minutes.

[Chad Walters, Board Member, Foundation of Hope]

Mr. Chair, honourable members and guests, it is a pleasure for us to be here today on behalf of the Foundation of Hope.

My name is Chad Walters. I am a board director with the foundation, and I'm here with my colleague, Paul Tolnai. We are grateful for this opportunity to share with you today our experiences and to contribute to your study on this matter. In addition to my role as a board director, I have also completed research on the topic of gay-identified refugee claimants and their experiences throughout the refugee status determination period. Thus, what I share with you today is an expression of my knowledge in both of these capacities.

The Foundation of Hope's vision statement is a world where LGBT+ refugees and newcomers can live freely and be themselves. We are a registered charity providing financial assistance to other Canadian charities actively supporting LGBT refugees and newcomers. We are a working volunteer board that is the first of its kind in Canada, and possibly the world.

From the beginning we recognized that a tremendous amount of resources are needed to help people find the freedom they need to be themselves. We saw a need for a fundraising organization that does not work directly with individual cases of LGBT persecution; therefore, our goal is to enable and empower those who do by providing targeted funding.

Under our charitable status, the foundation is legally required to direct all its charitable contributions towards other Canadian charities. Our mandate is to ensure broad representation exists to meet the needs of LGBT refugees and newcomers. This includes not only offering funding for private sponsorship applicants, but also support for our newest Canadians once they arrive in their new home. We believe there are emergent benefits that the foundation can foster through collaboration with charitable organizations that share common interests. The goal is for the Foundation of Hope to be the primary contact for Canadians who want to financially help organizations that fall under our mandate. This allows organizations to focus on providing services rather than fundraising.

[Paul Tolnai, Acting Secretary, Foundation of Hope]

Mr. Chair, in our first two years we've raised well in excess of $100,000 mainly through our flagship event, Strut, where we invite participants to walk a mile in shoes they normally wouldn't wear. After all, a mile in someone else's shoes is better than a lifetime in the closet. To date we have granted nearly $50,000 to partner charities. This includes Rainbow Railroad of Toronto, who work directly with LGBT people who need to get out of danger; Mosaic in Vancouver, who provide peer and mental health support to LGBT refugees once they are in Canada; Egale in Toronto for targeted LGBT youth newcomer support services; and the Inland Refugee Society of Vancouver, who offer emergency housing for LGBT refugees and newcomers.

One of the most heartbreaking stories came from earlier this year when we received an application for funding from the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees. They were seeking financial support to create a network of activists for Iranian LGBT asylum seekers in Turkey who faced specific discrimination not only for being LGBT, but also because of language and cultural issues. Despite this legitimate charity receiving Government of Canada funding for their projects, the Foundation of Hope had to reject their application because IRQR was not a registered Canadian charity. Our friends with Rainbow Refugee, who you'll hear from later, have informed us that they are also in a similar situation where they cannot request funds from us for their important work because they have yet to receive charitable status. This limitation for tax purposes has needlessly hindered the foundation's work. One of our recommendations would be for the government to provide specialized charities, such as the Foundation of Hope, with the ability to give to legitimate charities that either do not have, or are in the process of acquiring, their registered status.

[Chad Walters]

As a masters graduate student of social work, whose research focused on the experiences of gay-identified convention refugees, I have obtained an understanding of various challenges claimants face. I would make the following recommendations, based on my research and the narratives of the five participants.

First, ensure substantial LGBT competence training for immigration lawyers and officials. Hearing things like “but you don't look gay” is commonplace for claimants. Their journey to safety in Canada begins with doubt and disbelief, and we need to start from a place of trust. It is imperative that the way one looks is not a factor in one's credibility as LGBT. As it stands today, claimants are still required and encouraged to perform gayness in ways that may not feel authentic in order to appeal to stereotypes that are entrenched in the refugee apparatus. Passing as straight was a strategy for survival in their home countries, and expecting stereotypical mannerisms here is expecting falsity. In an atmosphere where credibility is constantly questioned, we should not create a situation where we demand that claimants are acting anything other than authentically themselves.

Second, reconsider asking claimants the question “when did you realize you were LGB or T?” This question assumes a clearly defined moment of realization in one's life. It is not something that can be easily answered and was distressing to some claimants. At times, claimants were made to choose an age arbitrarily in order to make a clear narrative. This speaks to a dissonance between claimants' authentic stories and the requirement to match lawyers' and adjudicators' understandings of LGBT lives.

Third, allow explicit mention of sexual orientation and gender identity as reason for protection as opposed to including SOGI peoples in the category of a particular social group. Explicit mention further legitimates these claims and moves toward greater inclusion and acknowledgement of this vulnerable group.

[Paul Tolnai]

Mr. Chair, on behalf of the Foundation of Hope and our partner charities, we offer our heartfelt thanks for extending this opportunity to meet with the committee this summer and also for extending this committee into the summer. It shows the truly non-partisan support of this House on this critical issue.

Mr. Walters and I welcome any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

I will now provide seven minutes to Ms. Morrissey and Mr. Mazur.

[Dylan Mazur, Executive Director, Vancouver Association for Survivors of Torture]

Thank you very much to the committee for the invitation. I'm honoured to share this place with Rainbow Refugee.

My name is Dylan Mazur, and I am the executive director at the Vancouver Association for Survivors of Torture, otherwise known as VAST. For the past 30 years, VAST has been providing trauma-focused psychological counselling for refugees who arrive in British Columbia with psychological trauma as a result of torture, political violence, and other forms of persecution, including that inflicted on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

In the realm of refugee protection, we believe that persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is unique, different from other forms of persecution in the enumerated grounds of the refugee convention, such as nationality and political opinion.

Why is it unique?

First, there is black-letter law in more than one third of countries in this world to criminalize homosexuality or the promotion of homosexuality. For LGBTI communities, this means that their own government has enacted legislation that criminalizes their identity; legislation that criminalizes this most fundamental form of human expression, the expression of gender and sexuality.

Second, persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is unique because it is not reserved for contexts of armed conflict or political violence. It takes place in any and all contexts in which identity is criminalized. These unique circumstances, we believe, require a unique response. First is to deem all LGBTI communities in the contexts in which their identities are criminalized as vulnerable groups and to not use armed conflict or political violence as an indicator of vulnerability, but rather to use the context to determine whether or not their identities are criminalized.

[Christine Morrissey, Special Advisor, Rainbow Refugee]

I am the co-founder and a volunteer with the Rainbow Refugee society, which was begun in the year 2000 specifically to support LGBT refugee claimants, and now asylum seekers, because the basis of their persecution is their sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status.

As Dylan has said, and clearly as has been recognized by the federal government, you're aware and I'm aware that members of the LGBT community are in fact vulnerable persons. This is reflected in the fact that in 2011 the federal government initiated a pilot for the sponsorship of folks seeking asylum because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

It's a national program. We form constituent groups and work with sponsorship agreement holders. We currently have groups that are working on initiatives in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, and B.C. The constituent groups raise funds for nine months and provide support for 12 months, while IRCC's RAP provides three months' worth of funds and a start-up package. These sponsorships do not affect the quotas of the SAHs, nor are they limited to specific geographic areas.

Since 2011, there are 70 LGBT individuals who are being sponsored, some of whom are couples, several of whom are blended visa office referrals, with Rainbow Refugee project sharing the cost. Approximately $1 million has been raised over the past four years by these constituency groups.

The need to continually renew this project does not work. At any point the project could end. Regularizing this project will enable LGBT folks to continue to sponsor members of a very vulnerable population.

[Dylan Mazur]

While we're addressing refugee protection here, we have worked with cases where people leaving their home countries will actually increase their vulnerability. What we are recommending is a pathway whereby LGBTI people can use the existing private sponsorship pathway with Rainbow Refugee and other groups across the country to apply on humanitarian and compassionate grounds for protection by the Canadian government. The reason for this is that they may be leaving one country in which they're criminalized in order to seek refuge in another, and that increases their vulnerability. We are recommending a pathway whereby they can apply for humanitarian and compassionate status through private sponsorship means.

[Christine Morrissey]

While there has been reference made to source countries and the procedure that we have had in the past in our immigration legislation, we're actually talking about vulnerable groups being identified regardless of the country, rather than having country-wide blankets, so that folks are able to make applications and have those applications processed in their home countries.

Every day I receive emails from members of our community from several of the 73 countries that criminalize sexual and gender minorities, including the 10 that have the death penalty. While the majority of LGBT refugees are not in inaccessible places geographically, our position is that because there are very few, if any, safe places for members of our community to access UNHCR and Canadian visa officers, this is what creates the inaccessibility. Lesbians are particularly vulnerable as women, often because of their inability to travel. Some have no access to Canadian visa officers outside of their home country.

Consider the following situations: a gay man from Uganda often goes to Kenya, where the legislation is identical to that in Uganda; a Syrian lesbian couple goes to the United Arab Emirates; a transsexual Singaporean may need to go to Malaysia, and vice versa. In all of these cases there is no safe access.

I want you to imagine that you have fled your country because of a fear of persecution because of your sexual orientation or gender identity. You have no contacts, no friends. You are not able to access any support agencies. You may be able to work legally; you may not. You may have had to apply for a visa to enter the country and have only six months, or in some cases only two weeks, to stay in that host country. Depending on where you have been able to go, you face processing times that create excessive hardship and danger over prolonged periods of time.

Currently the LGBT applicants that we are sponsoring face some of these unacceptable time lengths. For example, people we're sponsoring who are currently in Pakistan face a six-and-a-quarter-year wait. In Kenya, they experience six years; in Egypt, four and a half years; and in Cambodia, four years. Although UNHCR has developed guidelines for the interviewing of LGBTI individuals, most applicants are terrified that they will be interviewed by someone who is homophobic. Despite this, some do approach UNHCR; however, others do not. We, as constituent groups, do have experience in assessing credibility.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the panellists for their introductory remarks.

We will begin with Mr. Sarai for seven minutes, please.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you all for coming. Thank you to VAST for coming from British Columbia.

Maybe I'll start with Gloria first.

Canada used to have a category of refugees that were identified by source country. This allowed persons to present an application for resettlement within their country of origin without a UNHCR referral. What are your thoughts on this? What do you think the advantages or disadvantages of that category are?

[Gloria Nafziger]

There are serious advantages to the category, and I think my friends have articulated that need, particularly for LGBTI claimants. Without a doubt, there are some people for whom leaving their country is actually more dangerous than staying in their country. The ability to have a mechanism that can identify people who are at risk within their country is absolutely critical. Canada was viewed as a leader when it introduced the concept of a source country program, because it really does fall outside of the remit of a refugee program. There's no effective and easy tool currently that helps to identify people in that situation. In the course of the work that we do, we work with many human rights defenders: lawyers, journalists, people who are in hiding and can't leave.

The challenge in the program is finding adequate referral agents, organizations, individuals, that have the capacity, the willingness, and the ability to determine who of those source country individuals are most vulnerable, because I think the criteria of most vulnerable still always has to apply. I think the challenge they're in is actually finding the referral agency and the screening of the applications, but I don't think that should be a barrier to the introduction of such a program. It need not be geographically based. I think the suggestion that I heard, where it could be open and flexible to countries where there is a need, is an important one.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

This question would be to Mr. Walters. You said many LGBT community members are asked to demonstrate their “gayness”. Is that the UN, or is that Immigration Canada asking them to demonstrate that?

[Chad Walters]

All these folks that I interviewed for this project were inland refugee claimants, so that's on the Canadian side, the IRB.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

What would be the best way, do you think, for government intake workers to find out someone is a member of the LGBT community without offending them or putting them in an awkward situation? Obviously they have to demonstrate it in order to be a refugee, but what would be a more comfortable, more socially acceptable way for somebody in the LGBT community to be asked and to get a truthful answer out of them?

[Chad Walters]

It's a tough question to answer. If I just listen to the voices of the folks that I interviewed, none of them said they didn't want to have to prove their membership in the community. Each actually supported that requirement. It's just sometimes the way that it was approached was perhaps overly personal, like asking about quite specific sexual situations. I don't know. I'm not sure.

[Paul Tolnai]

If I may, for the purposes of what you're studying today, it is fantastic that we have Rainbow Refugee here. We've done the work for you. When we do a private sponsorship, we're pretty sure that they're gay, or LGBT, or part of that umbrella. We've done the work. It's easy.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

The problem with that is that you still need to have somebody in Citizenship and Immigration Canada to verify that, but it would be good for cultural sensitivity to know what the appropriate ways to ask are. I mean, for heterosexual couples, they're asked—

[Paul Tolnai]

A person can't come up to me if I'm a refugee and say, “Are you LGBT?” I'm sorry, it's not going to work. That's why the private sponsorship scheme that we're proposing that needs to be normalized is the best way for you to do it.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Okay.

I'm going to ask Mr. Fragiskatos to take the last minute and a half.

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

Thanks very much.

I want to ask about the pilot project. I read a CBC report published in 2015 that said that between 2011 and 2015 only 32 individual refugees have been helped by this project, yet it started in 2011. I just wonder...and I've heard from my own constituents.

In fact, a friend of mine works for a settlement agency in London, Ontario, the city I'm from and the city I represent here today. His primary responsibility, I should clarify, is to work with members of the LGBT community, those who come and are refugees and who require support based on that sensitivity. He said this program was not very well advertised and it wasn't promoted on government websites. Can you speak to that?

For only 32 individuals to be helped over four years is quite surprising. In principle, the program is great, so why so little help?