Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to speak to you today.
I work as a refugee lawyer in Vancouver. I am the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, but I am speaking on my own behalf today.
Before I start my comments, I should say that my work is and has been primarily with refugees who have already somehow made their way to Canada and claimed asylum once they arrived here. I do not have specific expertise on the situation of Yazidi refugees. Where I thought I could make some contribution to your study was on two points: the specialized services needed for refugees who have experienced severe trauma, including the need for family reunification, and more broadly, Canada's resettlement program.
First, on specialized services needed for refugees who arrive in Canada, I have experience working with women who have experienced violence and gender persecution. At one time, this was the primary focus of my practice. Each case is different, and the particular needs of a community will of course vary, but there is no doubt to me that arriving in a safe country is not the end of the journey of feeling safe and secure. The work continues, in some cases for many years after a refugee's resettlement.
You've heard from a number of witnesses about the specialized services needed for Yazidi refugees—women and children who have suffered horrific abuses and have come to Canada with severe trauma. I urge the committee to listen to the voices of the survivors themselves, and to those who are working with these communities, about the specialized services that would benefit them in resettlement. I echo the comments made this morning about the importance of proper interpretation and the use of trained interpreters in this work.
Canada has undertaken a special program to bring these refugees to Canada. When we bring refugees to Canada, we also have an obligation to try to estimate the types of services they may need and to monitor and respond to their needs. Refugees who have experienced this kind of trauma need specialized services. It is important to pay attention to the services they need and to respond. An investment in these services not only is the right thing to do, but it would also likely mean that community integration happens faster.
You have heard from survivors and those who work with them in Canada that family separation is particularly devastating to those who have experienced severe trauma and been resettled. Family reunification has been recognized by the UNHCR and by the government as an essential step in refugee resettlement. The UNHCR has recognized the family as “an essential right of the refugee” in its 1983 “Guidelines on Reunification of Refugee Families”.
There has been research—an Australian study in 2013, for example—that has found that being separated from their families had “pervasive impacts on the wellbeing [of refugees] and on their capacity to participate and direct their own futures”. The study concluded that family reunification must be “a crucial consideration for the design and provision of settlement services” to a refugee.
For refugees who survive trauma, separation from family can be especially difficult. Having the family together is absolutely critical to feeling safe and protected in one's new home. Efforts to reunify families have to be considered as part of our resettlement strategy. This may be done through special programs. It does not necessarily have to be through the resettlement process.
The second point I have to make is about setting priorities for Canada's resettlement program. It is no easy task to decide who is chosen for resettlement in Canada and who is left behind. I want to echo the comments made by the UNHCR representative who appeared before you, as well as Professor Shauna Labman. Both talked about establishing priorities for resettlement based on UNHCR's global resettlement criteria. These are objective criteria based on legal and physical protection needs, survivors of violence and torture, medical needs, women at risk, children at risk, and so on.
Where we do have special programs and initiatives for particular groups of refugees, this should not be carved out of Canada's targets that have already been set by the government for resettlement. When viewed in the context of the scale of the crisis, Canada's targets on resettlement are not high.
In 2018 we've capped government-assisted refugees at 7,500. As many of you know, there are refugees suffering in camps all over the world who have been victims of rape, torture, who have lost their family members, and who feel forgotten by Canada and the world as they wait to be resettled.
I would be remiss if I did not say to a committee studying refugees—and it's been said many times, but it is worth repeating—that this is a global refugee crisis. There have never been so many displaced people since World War II, and with these increasing numbers, in my view, Canada as a wealthy nation needs to respond by increasing its numbers. And in particular the number of government-assisted refugees is particularly low.
Thank you. Those are my submissions.