Thank you very much for the invitation to address you today, and thank you all for giving up your time in your constituencies this summer to look at this really important issue.
I'm an immigration and refugee lawyer. I've been working in this field in one capacity or another since 1994. I am certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a specialist in refugee law and also as a specialist in immigration law.
In general, Canada has a refugee resettlement program that is the envy of the world. There are many countries today that are looking at our resettlement program as a model and are thinking about how to adopt various aspects of it for themselves. We are doing really well in this regard, and I'm really proud of us, but I think we can always do things better.
What do I think are the chief problems when it comes specifically to minority communities? Well, first of all, internally displaced persons are completely left out of our Canadian resettlement program. This has to do with the definition, legally, of what is a convention refugee, both internationally and in our domestic law. It requires someone to be outside of their country of nationality to initiate a claim. This concept hearkens back to the time when the convention was drafted in 1951, which was post-World War II, which was a very different type of conflict than the types of things we see today.
The second issue has to do with a lot of the minority, very vulnerable, communities being located physically in areas that are either literally inaccessible safely or at least inaccessible by the UNHCR. The problem this creates is tied to the fact that we have basically wholesale subrogated our refugee selection to the UNHCR.
The UNHCR is a wonderful organization. I admire it very much. However, they have their own limitations, which they themselves will freely admit, and frankly speaking, Canadians didn't elect them to make these kinds of decisions as to what's best for us. The UNHCR simply doesn't and cannot have a presence everywhere in the world where they're needed, and they're hampered by their own logistical and financial concerns. They also do not have a mandate over internally displaced persons. So again, the group of IDPs is completely left out in the cold.
I've read the written deputation sent to the committee by Rainbow Railroad. They are experiencing the same frustrating experiences that many of the other witnesses before you earlier today and yesterday described, including long delays and processing times by the UNHCR and people often living in dangerous conditions while waiting years to get a UNHCR appointment.
May I also say that I think the best thing we can do for vulnerable minorities all over the world is to eradicate ISIL—whatever it takes. That should be a top priority for our society.
On a more immediate level, however, specifically in the immigration context, there are domestic steps we can take. For example, relieving private sponsors of much of the red tape that now binds them up would free the sponsorship communities to help the people they want to help. This has worked very well in past years with specific communities, whether religious, sexual orientation, or ethnic. Allow Canadians to decide for themselves who they want to sponsor, and allow Canadians to put their money where their mouths are and back it up with finances.
Caps on private sponsorships for the sponsorship agreement holders are also a major problem. It's not only the existence of the caps, it's the unpredictability of those caps, which do not allow sponsorship agreement holders from year to year to know how many people they're going to be able to sponsor.
It also, I think, makes sense to draw certain distinctions between groups of people, not to discriminate against those who are not prioritized but to recognize the simple reality that some groups are singled out and horrifically targeted by their persecutors. If the persecutors themselves draw those distinctions, it only makes sense that our response has to be proportionate. Every refugee faces a well-founded fear of persecution, but not every refugee is a genocide victim. Not every refugee is a survivor of sex slavery. We're talking about apples and oranges.
True equality doesn't always mean treating people exactly the same. Sometimes we have to treat groups differently in order to make them equal. All refugees need protection, but not all of them need permanent resettlement. Some of these minority groups will never be able to go home, even after the war is over. This is unlike many of the current displaced groups, who will be able to go home once the war is over. For example, a lot of the Muslim majority will be able to go home and will, in fact, want to go home.
We need to also be asking ourselves very serious questions about why many of the neighbouring Arab countries, some of whom are very wealthy, are not doing more to protect their own co-religionists and people who share a similar culture and background. A very small minority of Middle Eastern countries are shouldering more than their fair share of that burden.
The error of the previous government was not acting fast enough and not acting on a large enough scale to respond to the Middle East refugee crisis. The numbers that were admitted overall were comparatively small. Most of those were privately sponsored, with very few government-assisted, and with very long processing times.
What are the legal and administrative tools available to us to alleviate some of these problems that are facing us? The first is the increased use of the humanitarian and compassionate provisions in section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to cover off situations where people are not outside their country of origin—for example, internally displaced people—and people who do not have UNHCR recognition. That would cover people who are not able, for whatever reason, to access UNHCR registration or to access UNHCR camps.
I'll give you an example. I had two or three files in which I had previously requested section 25 H and C discretion from the immigration department, and the processing office in Winnipeg had absolutely no clue how to handle a request like that in the context of a sponsorship for a refugee. It was unbelievable to me that this could have been the case, but it was the case: they did not know how to handle it, statutory discretion. For this reason, I think if we're going to use section 25 more liberally, then there will have to be a specific directive written to visa officers, and immigration officers inland, on how to exercise that discretion and on the proper parameters for it.
Second, lift or at least better manage the caps on sponsorship agreement holders. Private sponsors are really excited right now, and they're willing to back up their enthusiasm with their wallets. I say let them loose. Let them sponsor however many they're prepared to financially support.
In addition, in terms of waiving interviews for groups like the Yazidis, who testified this morning, why not waive their interviews with CIC? Everyone knows they're refugees. They're prima facia refugees. They really only need to pass their security and medical screening. Why are we interviewing every single one of them? Not only does it create backlogs but it also creates a situation where it's difficult to send Canadian visa officers into these various areas without a risk to their security.
I actually raised this in an interview not that long ago with IRCC personnel. I was told that they can't waive the interviews. They have to interview them for security. That didn't really make sense to me, because every immigrant to Canada under every category has to pass a security check. The vast majority of people who immigrate to Canada do not have to do a personal interview for a security check. That doesn't make sense. When I proposed that perhaps the interviews could be done by Skype or by video conference, I was told, no, that was not suitable, because it wouldn't allow someone to judge their credibility properly. That's interesting, because many refugee claims in Canada are adjudicated by video conference. Why is it okay for inland claims but not okay for outside of Canada claims? This could alleviate a lot of the backlog.
Finally, there's the more systematic use of temporary resident permits under section 24 of IRPA for urgent cases involving immediate risk. TRPs are sometimes issued, but I find they're issued very sparingly. Perhaps a more liberal use of that particular vehicle would be very helpful. Reports about attacks on Yazidi communities, for example, first came out in August 2014. In conjunction with the Office for Refugees of the Archdiocese of Toronto, who I believe testified yesterday, and One Free World International, who I believe will testify tomorrow, I helped to draft a proposal to CIC. This was in early 2015 under the previous government. That proposal was to do with a project for resettlement, a small-scale project for women survivors of sex slavery from ISIS in the minority Yazidi community. My expertise was strictly on the legal side. I know nothing about the logistics of such things.
No action was taken on that proposal despite numerous follow-ups. That proposal was again renewed when the new government came into power with the new minister, and again no action was taken on that despite several follow-ups. The only time that proposal got any attention was after the last sitting of this committee, when these similar issues were discussed. It appears that this now is on the right track, and I just want to say thank you to the committee and congratulate you on your work, because it is making a difference.
Thank you.
