Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 1st, 2018

[William Lacy Swing]

Yes, we do what we can to support you on that. It's very difficult sometimes. They don't have travel documents, and we try to link them up with their authorities. Right now we have the problem in Libya. We've taken 21,000 Africans from the detention centres back home. We've encouraged all the Africans to send their consular officials back in to help us identify them and give them at least a temporary travel document.

We don't have the authority to issue travel documents as such, so we depend on the consular authorities, and very often that's difficult and it does delay the process of bringing them here.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

What are the challenges that you face in getting the exit permits?

[William Lacy Swing]

The exit permit is a question of negotiation with wherever the refugees happen to be. We've sorted it out with Libya now. The CNN story on the slave markets brought us all together around a common purpose to try to empty those 31 detention cells and bring them home. Therefore we have gotten support from all the African countries to issue the travel documents.

If we don't have travel documents and the exit permits, we cannot do anything other than talk to the government about it. The Sarajj government in Tripoli right now, where I've been twice this year, is doing a better job on that. They're issuing them now fairly quickly.

Specific cases, however—I'll leave my card with you—you can bring to our personal attention, because our business model is we're in about 480 places. We're very decentralized, even within Libya, and in Syria we have 200 people working. I very often can help you if you give me a specific case.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

During your career you have seen first-hand the scale and scope of the global refugee demand. You talked in your comments about it being driven by conflict, war, and poverty. While we talk a lot about resettlement, we know that only a fraction of the global refugee population can be resettled, because the numbers are so high and because many, if not most, refugees hope to return to their homeland one day.

Can you please discuss what more countries such as Canada can do, outside of resettlement, to assist the refugee population and address this refugee crisis?

[William Lacy Swing]

First of all, I want to commend you again for the number that you are taking in, which, relative to your population, is one of the largest in the world, and this year may be the largest.

Continue to encourage others by showing how it works in Canada, because you prepare the terrain very well. We help you with the pre-selection, we do the medical exams for you, we support your cultural orientation abroad program, and we do the transportation. It's by your talking to other governments and encouraging them that.... Right now, we're still only resettling 1% of the refugee population every year.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Other than resettlement, what can we do to assist the refugees?

[William Lacy Swing]

Well, let's take Syria as a case. Many Syrians are already returning home. We have to very careful. Some of the Nordic countries were asking me in the last year or two to resettle Somalis into the Mogadishu area. I said, “I can't do it.” They said, “But they say they want to go home.” I can't do it because the security is not there. I will not and cannot take people back to an area that I know is insecure. We're very careful about that.

However, last year we resettled almost 100,000 people who wanted to go home, so it can be done.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I know that the IOM is on the ground in Bangladesh in response to the refugee crisis that has been triggered by the Burmese army and the Government of Burma against its Rohingya population. As you know, Canada has committed over $50 million in humanitarian aid relief to that region. The Prime Minister's special adviser, Bob Rae, is preparing a report, and he will be visiting Burma again.

Could you update us on the situation on the ground there? What more can the international community do to end this crisis and to help those who have been displaced?

[William Lacy Swing]

That is a good question again. Thank you very much.

In September 2013, IOM was asked by a cabinet decision in Dhaka to take charge of the 190,000 Rohingya who were already in the country. We did that dutifully. We looked after them until August 25 of last year, when the military of Myanmar went in and burned the villages. Another 660,000 have fled since then, from August 25 until today, so we have more. We have roughly 850,000 Rohingya there now. We are still doing the coordination with the UNHCR, our traditional partner, as well as many other agencies, but the needs are enormous.

The Bangladeshis, of course, have a very small country, overpopulated already, with nearly a million additional people on their territory, and they want to know how these people can be resettled. That is a major political issue with the military, who really don't want them back. They took away their citizenship to start with, gave them an ID card, and then they took the ID card away and chased them out. It is going to be a long political process to get Burma/Myanmar to accept them back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Swing.

Go ahead, Ms. Rempel.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair; and thank you, Mr. Swing.

I note that you're a North Carolinian. I have some family there, so there's a bit of a connection.

My questions relate to some of the audit findings that were undertaken by our Department of Citizenship and Immigration in 2015. One of the recommendations was that our department:

should actively monitor and report on [your organization's] implementation of the 'budget strengthening plan' to ensure that increases to membership costs result in evidence-based reporting, policy guidance, higher quality research, and budgetary transparency.

What measures has your organization put in place to ensure that Canada is getting better value for money than we were prior to the audit?

[William Lacy Swing]

I don't have in my mind what.... We are, I think, one of the most transparent agencies in the UN system. We have a budget reform committee that meets regularly. It's continued for the last three or four years. I've always operated on the principle that you own the organization—I work for you, since you elected me—but if there are specific concerns there, I think we're delivering value for money.

We had a budget last year of $1.57 billion. We ran the organization for less than $40 million, which comes out to about 3% to 4%. I think we have the lowest markup, or overhead, at about 7%. It's much lower than most of the other UN agencies.

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

Just to go back, though, to the specific findings of the audit by our department, would you be able to table with our committee anything that the IOM has undertaken to address that specific concern? I notice that one of the implementation lines in that audit was that your agency was working on some of the concerns that our government had raised. It would be of interest to parliamentarians here to hear your progress on that.

[William Lacy Swing]

Well, I'm not dodging your question; I just don't have the answer. However, I will get you an answer in writing and send it to you.

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

Thank you.

How much is your current budget from Canada right now?

[William Lacy Swing]

Canada has provided IOM $300 million U.S. between 2013 and 2017. You've been extremely generous to us. You've enabled us to work throughout the world. In fact, I think I have a handout I can give you that has the specifics, including all of the projects that Canada has supported. It's really quite impressive.

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

Are you in talks with the government right now for an increase in funding from Canada?

[William Lacy Swing]

Well, we're always seeking more support for our projects. You've just given us nearly $2 million for the Rohingya in southeastern Bangladesh.

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

Okay.

Is there a formal request to our government for an increase in operating support above and beyond our membership fee?

[William Lacy Swing]

No. In my meeting yesterday with the four deputy ministers and their staff, I told them that as a general proposition, it would help IOM if we got more multi-year un-earmarked funding, or softly earmarked funding, because we have very little flexibility. All of our money, 97%, is tied to projects, what we call projectization. Beyond that, we have very little money if I want to expand, for example, into the Gulf countries.

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

Sure.

One of the challenges we're facing right now in Canada is that there is a big demand on a lot of our resettlement services programs to ensure that integration component you talked about.

One of the things that the 2015 audit showed—and this was done by our department officials and wasn't politically written—that it's “difficult to quantify the benefits of membership described earlier in this report in an exact dollar figure, given the participatory nature of the engagement.”

I'm just wondering if you could quantify for us why we should support giving your organization more money, given that it's difficult to quantify the outcome, when resettlement services agencies that do language training and on-the-ground support are asking for more money and Canada is in a deficit position.

[William Lacy Swing]

When you speak of “giving us money”, it's money that's tied to projects that you wish IOM to implement for you, and that's the analysis. I can give you of all the projects we've done.

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

And none of our funding goes to any sort of administrative or just general membership fund for you?

[William Lacy Swing]

There is a 7% markup that we use, yes.

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

Sure.

During our Syrian refugee initiative, one of the causes of delays in resettling refugees in Canada was the backlog flight arrangement process through your organization. We had several of our private sponsors through our private sponsorship program asking if it was possible for them to pay to book flights on their own to bring refugees to Canada. Would you be supportive of that suggestion?