Evidence of meeting #58 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was refugees.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

David Manicom  Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Donald Cochrane  Senior Director, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Lisa Hébert  Coordinator, Capital Rainbow Refuge
1  Program Participant, Canadian Citizen, Capital Rainbow Refuge
Eka Nasution  Director, Rainbow Foundation of Hope
Chad Wilkinson  Director, Rainbow Foundation of Hope
Sharalyn Jordan  Board Chair, Rainbow Refugee
Soubhi M.  Member, Rainbow Refugee

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON

Lisa, how many potential sponsors do you have or is there a group that's still waiting to be matched up?

4:55 p.m.

Coordinator, Capital Rainbow Refuge

Lisa Hébert

We're working with about six to eight groups. Some of them are here. We have Baker's Dozen here and we have the Ottawa Rainbow Friendship Alliance. We have some individuals who have come as Inland, and we have formed separate groups with them. I'm very grateful that they have shown an interest in coming to the committee too. I think we feel that we can do more and we'd be happy to.

5 p.m.

Director, Rainbow Foundation of Hope

Chad Wilkinson

We are a registered charity in Canada. Getting our registered charitable status was critical for us to be able to build up our donor base, because they obviously benefit from the tax credit. A condition of our charitable status is that we grant funding towards only other registered charities. We do that. Obviously Capital Rainbow Refuge is the main one. We worked with Rainbow Refugee to get their registered charitable status, and they recently got it, so now they can apply directly to us for grant funding, which is wonderful.

I'll say something that is really fascinating about what's starting to happen. There is a movement starting to happen. Not only are people coming to us and actually wanting to hold fundraisers on our behalf, but we actually have massive corporations like TD Bank coming to us and bestowing on us incredible gifts. The TD Aeroplan Pride program gave us three million Aeroplan miles that we could use for our cause. It seems really obvious at first to say, “well, that's great, because you are bringing refugees over.” However, we can't do it with our Aeroplan miles because there is a very entrenched process in place that requires the Government of Canada to supply the International Organization for Migration with the money to organize the flights to bring the refugees over, so we can't actually see it in that revenue stream, which would be coming from a deep pocket. So, that's a major challenge for us. We are hoping we can work with the government to find a way to make our case so sponsorship groups that we've actually supported will be eligible quite easily to have the costs of their travel covered. We have TD ready and able to help us. That's a big challenge, and I think it's important for me to point that out.

5 p.m.

Director, Rainbow Foundation of Hope

Eka Nasution

For me and my husband, the most difficult time was when we tried to get a visa to come to Canada. We applied in November of 2015, but at the same time there was an influx of Syrian refugees coming to Canada so we needed to wait from November 2015 and we got our visa in February 2016. So, it was almost five months of waiting, which felt like five years. Then we came here. Actually the worst thing was the moment of waiting, but, thankfully, Rainbow Railroad, which is also part of our network, guided us on how to come here. Using our documentation, we had to show the Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver that we were coming here as a couple. We had our official letter and registrar, so in terms of documentation, it was not very hard for me. I am also the director of the Foundation of Hope, and I'm handling the grant committee services applications. Some of the applications were coming, and we actually got emails from Uganda and from Turkey asking for help. It seems to me that it would be better for all the assistance programs for LGBTQ refugees not to be focused on only one single country in the Middle East. It has to be done in terms of humanity and not by region.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj

Be very brief. You have 10 seconds.

5 p.m.

Board Chair, Rainbow Refugee

Sharalyn Jordan

We've had the honour of working with 800 people. We have 19 circles in formation in B.C. and 12 more on the go. There is clearly the capacity. You've heard about the fundraising capacity. There is the desire to do more. We want to be given the opportunity.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj

Thank you.

Ms. Rempel, you have seven minutes, please.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll just preface this by saying that I fully support turning the RRAP into a permanent ongoing program with ongoing funding.

To the agencies that have been working here to do this, I want to express my thanks for your work. For those of you who came here to share your stories, I want to thank you for your courage, as well as Chad for making us uncomfortable because we should be uncomfortable.

The reality is that nobody should be persecuted or tortured for who they love or for living their own personal truth. Canada has to make that statement permanent, not just through statements and nice words, but through programs such as this.

I would like to use the remainder of my time, because we don't have a lot of meetings scheduled for this particular study, to talk about how a permanent ongoing program could be structured in terms of values, metrics, and an operating framework.

Some of the suggestions that I've heard in both your briefs and your testimony today include ensuring that the funding and the program are set up to be cognizant of the unique integration and support needs of the LGBTQ community when they come here as refugees; ensuring that processing times are contextualized within the fact that the LGBTQ community are some of the most persecuted people in the world, in many parts of the world; and ensuring that if we have one initiative or another, we're not seeing those numbers drop because they're all of a sudden not prioritized.

I've heard that we need to have some emphasis around demystifying or taking the confusion out of the process. For people who are in need, the last thing they want to be doing is trying to figure out how to access the program—so some sort of initiative around, again, demystifying the process or providing simpler information.

This program should also have the ability to react to situations such as that in Chechnya. The point has been made over and over again that there are 76 countries around the world, that there are so many places where the community is persecuted, and that we can't react to everything. I would argue that this program, if it's ongoing, should be able to react in situations like this. It should be nimble, and it shouldn't take six months of committee study to react to it.

I would also say that I've heard about the issue of questioning, the questioning that happens through the UNHCR process or through the Canadian process. I've heard that members of the community have been asked really inappropriate questions, such as “Are you a top, or are you a bottom?” I think there should be some sort of sensitivity and a coordinated effort to make that happen.

What I also heard was that the funding provided should really harness and build capacity, and continue to build capacity within the personal generosity of Canadians to do this. That should be a value.

I would also argue that there are some tangential things we need to look at, as well, to.... I'll close by saying that we should probably have some discussion—and I would look to you—on metrics. How do we measure this? You heard the discussion within the department. This is a very difficult issue within the government-assisted refugee stream. How do we address that?

To the point that was made about this being a global issue, it can't just be about resettlement. The country also has to pair an ongoing program with continued outspokenness against regimes that entrench within governments the persecution of the LGBTQ community. It can't just be about resettlement. There also has be a diplomatic position in our messaging against countries that do this.

That's how I've distilled the summary. I have three minutes left in my time. I'd just love to hear your feedback on this. Have we got it right? Do you support that? Is there anything that I've missed?

5:05 p.m.

Board Chair, Rainbow Refugee

Sharalyn Jordan

I think you've distilled many of the critical elements. There needs to be support for civil society organizations, centring LGBTQ civil society organizations to be able to work pre-arrival and post-arrival.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Should the civil society organizations also have a mechanism to work with the department to identify people in situations like we're seeing in Chechnya?

5:05 p.m.

Board Chair, Rainbow Refugee

Sharalyn Jordan

Yes. Often it is the NGOs on the ground that know who is seeking protection. We are already working with Rainbow Railroad, which is working with LGBTQ Russian networks. The networks are there. It would be helpful to communicate and work closely to identify two sources, like the UNHCR. I think we need a both-and solution. This is not an either-or.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Sure.

5:05 p.m.

Director, Rainbow Foundation of Hope

Chad Wilkinson

You should go first. I do have comments on the funding.

5:05 p.m.

Coordinator, Capital Rainbow Refuge

Lisa Hébert

Thank you. I love your comments and would agree with them.

One of the things we don't always mention, because it gets involved in the jargon, is that one of the things that makes this work is that we're outside of the quotas to work with the SAHs.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Sure.

5:05 p.m.

Coordinator, Capital Rainbow Refuge

Lisa Hébert

Queer groups are not necessarily a natural alliance with the churches, though we've had great work with our SAHs. Unitarians have been fabulous partners, but they've been really frank about saying they can't work with us if we take away from their quota. That's in the brief that we sent to you. That's one of the kind of specific things that would be useful.

I also wanted to mention that every once in a while, when we have a really urgent case that we're working on as part of the rainbow RAP, the government has been good to turn it around, sometimes because they can act more quickly. If we have somebody who has had a death threat, they have been able to move them ahead as, perhaps, government assisted refugees or temporary resident permits.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Perhaps an additional set of criteria should be entrenched in the program that would allow the government to be permanently more nimble.

5:10 p.m.

Coordinator, Capital Rainbow Refuge

Lisa Hébert

Well, they have been good and we would encourage them more to do that—

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Sure.

5:10 p.m.

Coordinator, Capital Rainbow Refuge

Lisa Hébert

—because we always feel that we ask politely and they respond politely. It would be nice to know we could do that more frequently.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Sure.

5:10 p.m.

Coordinator, Capital Rainbow Refuge

Lisa Hébert

You make an interesting point, too, that this program has never been on the website. Some of the churches have not known it exists and we have to convince them, but there's never been anything public about the program's existence, so it could come out of the closet.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Quickly, I want 10 seconds.

5:10 p.m.

Director, Rainbow Foundation of Hope

Chad Wilkinson

The only comment I would make is that we exist entirely as a volunteer organization and we're committed to our donor base. They want to see our money going out to help, so we are full-time employees and we do this in our spare time. We have in our constitution that we will not use more than 10% of any of our capacity as an operational expenditure.

Rainbow Railroad has raised over $100,000 through Facebook for Chechnya, which is amazing. Rainbow Railroad is the reason that Eka is here. Rainbow Railroad is an organization that we support.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Of course, but I think I have one second and I'll close with this. To the church comment, I would argue that any faith group should prioritize compassion and love for people who receive that love, or persecution, and that's a value we should also promote.