Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 20th, 2016

[David Manicom]

Would be...?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

When the previous government instructed the department to prioritize cases of ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities for referral to Canada by the UNHCR, would Yazidis be included under that categorization?

[David Manicom]

Yes, I believe so.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

There have been several media reports and leaked data that show there was an audit conducted. This audit was the subject of much political discourse during the election. It showed there were a limited number of ethnic minorities brought to Canada in the data that was provided in that audit. There was a majority group that had been brought in. This was through the government-assisted refugee program.

Where would Canada have gotten those referrals from? Would it be from the UNHCR?

[David Manicom]

It would all have come from the UNHCR, but I need to repeat that those were only several of a number of areas of focus that the previous government asked the United Nations to provide to Canada.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

We've heard from many people that, specifically in response to the UN report, which has recently declared that the genocide of Yazidis is occurring, we should be accelerating the asylum claims of Yazidis who have been victims of genocide.

If we are going to put in place a policy that would accelerate these applications, or any sort of specific program to bring more Yazidis to Canada, would it not be prudent for the government to track whether we brought Yazidis into Canada to measure the success of our program's operation?

[David Manicom]

Well, it would be a very complicated question to answer as to whether or not Canada should implement in a systematic way the tracking of ethnicity, religion, and sexual minority status in our refugee system.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

If we don't—

[David Manicom]

If I could, that would—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I realize that there are sensitivities around this.

Let's call a spade a spade here. We don't want to be creating xenophobia or racism. However, if we're stating a priority that we need to be bringing in a persecuted group who is facing genocide, should we not be seeing whether our system is actually working by tracking who is coming in under that program?

In terms of the public service, we often measure the outcomes of programs. Are you saying that we should not be measuring it in that situation?

[David Manicom]

Not at all.

If we had a program that was dedicated to one group and we were asking for referral specifically from one group, as we have done under a number of public policies, for example—one of which I cited and I was deeply involved in the operationalization of, in India for Tibetans—then, of course, that's a very isolated program.

It's a different thing to put in place, for example, the systems needed to know how many members of the 28,0000 or so Syrians resettled so far—or Iraqis or globally—are Yazidis or Christians or Shiites and so forth. That's quite a different undertaking.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

In what way?

[David Manicom]

Under the principles of privacy collection, governments don't collect systematic information from people unless it is of direct relevance.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How are we supposed—

[David Manicom]

So, for example—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

If that's the case, then, as legislators, how are we supposed to understand whether or not our system is actually bringing the most vulnerable to Canada?

[David Manicom]

People are vulnerable for a large set of different and complicated reasons. We have the vulnerability criteria laid out in the UNHCR handbook. We sit and work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with other resettlement countries, on a regular basis to establish which populations we are working toward. However, an unprotected woman in a refugee camp may be extremely vulnerable primarily because she is a woman and not because of her ethnic origin. Someone who also happens to be gay might primarily require protection because of his or her political opinion.

If one wants to provide statistics that are reliable, you have to do it systematically. To put in place a system where at each interview we ask each person whether they are Jewish, Shiite, Muslim, gay, and record that data, is something that would require a great deal of resources and a decision by the government to collect this information on everyone regardless of whether or not it is pertinent. That would raise a number of principles with the Privacy Commissioner, for example.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Excuse me, because I have only a few seconds of time left.

You said that Canada confidently relies on the UNHCR to provide us with lists of refugees, yet we've heard witnesses say that they.... The UN itself couldn't tell us what they're doing to accelerate Yazidi applications. We've heard of wait times until 2022 for Yazidi claimants, and we've heard about discrimination based on religion by UNHCR representatives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 10 seconds.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Is there anything that the government is doing to work with the UNHCR to overcome some of these obstacles or to consult with people working on the ground who are providing this data?

If we're going to confidently rely on it, shouldn't we be monitoring it?

[David Manicom]

Absolutely, and Canada is an integral part of the resettlement working group in Geneva.

We have previously, on multiple occasions, chaired the tripartite consultations on resettlement, which involves the entire humanitarian and non-governmental sector, as well as the member states of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the agency itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Manicom.

Ms. Kwan, seven minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I thank the witnesses and ministry officials for appearing before us.

I think our task here today is to not make it difficult for officials to answer questions and to explain the direction of governments, previous or otherwise, but rather to say that the work before the committee today is to try to find some solutions to address the crisis that's before us. We've had a whole array of witnesses appear before us, with lots of suggestions.

To that end, I want to focus on a couple of things. One is with respect to the issue around tracking.

On the Syrian refugee initiative, at the outset when the government announced the initiative, the identified groups they highlighted were women, children and family, and LGBTQI community members at extreme risk. To that end, my questions were centred especially on the LGBTQI community.

How do we know that we are reaching that goal? We're now learning that we're not able to really identify that very readily. There is, then, a question, and I think a solution has been found with respect to the witnesses before us, about how we can do this better and focus and target this highly vulnerable group. That is by recognizing the countries—I think we were informed that there are about 63 of them across the globe—that have declared people's sexual orientation and gender identity to be illegal. In those instances, we can classify this as a vulnerable group in this sense and therefore target it.

Is this something we can do, as a policy decision going forward, to address this issue of vulnerability?

I'll ask Mr. Manicom, I guess. I'm not sure who would be most appropriate to answer this question.

[David Manicom]

I'm not sure that I fully understood the question, Ms. Kwan, but certainly Canada has identified sexual orientation as one of its resettlement priorities for a number of years. We have always been front and centre at the United Nations in saying that if you have persons in need of resettlement who are members of the LGBTI community, think of Canada.

There are certainly other countries who resettle the LGBTI refugees as well; it's not only Canada that works in this way.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

There is no question that Canada is not the only country. I get that; we do this internationally. But Canada has a role to play, and I'm proud of the work we do historically. I think we can do more, and I'm really looking forward to seeing this government advancing that goal on the international stage, as well as locally, for us to take pride in.

I gather from that answer that it is feasible and plausible for us to do this, as a policy direction.

The second question is with respect to the recurring theme that has occurred at the committee to bring back the source country class applications. I see in the presentations that there are issues with respect to that and to how it was prior to 2011.

Is there not some way we can adjust or tweak the problems that were identified with this classification to today? Virtually every group who appeared before us advanced this as part of the solution to the problems we face. I get that we can use the humanitarian and compassionate status opportunity to bring some of these folks in, but as we know, there are many limitations with respect to that. As it stands, for all those witnesses who appeared before us, that does not seem to be working. We have to do better. If we try to do better, is there an opportunity, and can the committee then work with the officials to try to find a way to bring back this class in a way that's workable and solve the problems that existed prior to now?