Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 25th, 2010

[Chantal Desloges]

The example I alluded to earlier is a good one. There was a religious minority group from Myanmar, or Burma, called the Karen refugees. They were a religious minority who had escaped over the border into Thailand and they were sitting in camps at that time.

This was just a few years ago. They had a special project, where they said, “Okay, we're going to resettle a whole group of these people. We're going to pluck them right out of where they are and bring them over to Canada as part of a special one-time project.”

That would be a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I look at a report we have here, and one of the things notes how the minister may enter into a memorandum of understanding with an organization for the purposes of locating and identifying convention refugees. I wonder if that is something that brings us close to what you're describing.

The situation has been reported in the media and in countries around the world. We're well aware that in Uganda there is a systemic situation when it comes to gays and lesbians and that the government has passed this law. And then you had...I think it was over 150 people named in a newspaper--literally targeted.

I know we have exceptional situations around the world of people who are in dire circumstances, but to be targeted within your own nation in that fashion strikes me as something that's worthy for our government to consider some kind of special action.

We had a witness before us, and if I'm remembering his testimony correctly, he offered to go to a neighbouring country if he had these special temporary residence visas, or the application, or whatever the form would be. He was in communication with close to 200 of these folks he was willing to work with.

Do you know of any time that something similar to this has ever happened? Is this outside of the standard procedures completely?

[Chantal Desloges]

It's not unprecedented, but it's fairly rare. I do remember that a few years back--well, not a few, maybe ten--there used to be an organization that did a lot of the refugee pre-selection for refugees in Turkey. I believe it was a Catholic organization called Caritas. Usually CIC would enter into agreements with organizations that have a very established track record and a high degree of credibility dealing with refugees.

So yes, that's definitely something that could be done, but I really doubt that they would entertain that for someone like the witness who just offered to go and do that without having a track record. However, that doesn't mean some other organization couldn't do it.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

When we listened to the witness, I was concerned that even though he had a great passion for the situation and felt very involved, he came across very much as a layperson trying to get into this very complex field to try to address the situation for people he knew in that country. It's good to hear that there's a potential there at least, so that this committee, in considering what actions or recommendations we may make, has at least the avenue to discuss some potential.

If we had a special group put in place, can you give us an estimate of the timeframe it might take them to conclude and get the people transferred to Canada? Are we talking 35 or 50 months, or are we talking sooner?

[Chantal Desloges]

If the willpower is there, there's no reason it couldn't be done in less than a year.

For example, once the selection of the person is made, once we put the label on you—yes, you're a refugee—the requirements after that are security and medical tests. We want to make sure you don't have tuberculosis that you're going to spread. We want to make sure you haven't been involved in any groups or have a criminal record. Those things can actually be done within a few months, depending on outside agencies such as doctors, security agencies such as CSIS, and things like that.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

When people were described to us as being on the list, so to speak, it sounded as though there were a large number of professionals, people of means, who might have a better chance of surviving in another country for up to a year to get here, so it's not as pressing as it would be if they were people in a refugee camp and struggling day to day in that fashion.

I certainly appreciate your testimony. It's been helpful. Thank you very much.

[Chantal Desloges]

Thank you.

I'll just add the comment that there is that category of self-supporting refugees. If some of them do have significant financial means, it's possible for them to apply independently without necessarily being sponsored.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

If they had to apply separately, would they be doing that in their own countries? Would they not be facing the people they'd be concerned about? I'm thinking of the Africans who might be troubled with the situation. We are in a circumstance in which they have to leave the country, I think, from everything we're hearing. They don't dare deal with the bureaucracy there. That complicates their situation, I would think.

[Chantal Desloges]

Yes, and you can't be a refugee if you're still inside your country anyway, so they would be in a position of having to leave.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Marston.

Do we begin with Mr. Sweet or Mr. Hiebert?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I'll pick up on Mr. Marston's questions and comments with Madame Desloges.

There's also another way: those who are highly skilled or who have technical skills that are on a list of what we're looking for to build our economy can apply and be fast-tracked through the immigration process rather than come through the refugee process. There's that avenue too.

I should say right from the beginning, for full disclosure, that I know Madame Desloges quite well. I've been an admirer of her great work, and we've had the opportunity to work together. One of our mutual pursuits was the expansion of the private sponsorship of refugees program in order to get the numbers to a place that would allow us to welcome more people here.

This is one of the areas that's tough in that sense. I was just going to mention.... Chantal, you mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan. Some other countries that come to my mind are Sudan, Myanmar, and Iran--particularly Iran, as far as the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community is concerned--where there is a huge need similar to the need we're talking about right now. Our capacity to absorb is one of the challenges we face. We're a country that takes a lot of refugees per capita.

You mentioned the visa office, but in the case of private sponsorship there's also the capacity to process them by having families or groups of people who will look after them and settle them here as well. That is a major challenge. I appreciate some of the comments you've made about some ideas.

Because you commented on some other legislation, I wanted to ask you about Bill C-11. That bill, the refugee reform act, was passed and has received royal assent, but it's not in place now. Did that move the ball along the field, so to speak, in terms of making it easier for inland refugees?

[Chantal Desloges]

One positive thing it did for inland refugees was give them a right of appeal. That's something all the refugee advocates are very happy about.

There are other aspects of the bill that weren't so well received--for example, forcing a person to have their complete story and case ready to go within a very short period of time. We felt that deprived them of the right to counsel.

I wouldn't say it's easier; it's different. We can certainly celebrate the introduction of the refugee appeal division.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

You mentioned before that there were some other ways. You mentioned the visa officers getting more training and having more specifics about dealing with the different levels of cases. Are there some other areas, as far as our capacity building is concerned, around improving the whole system?

Lastly--and I'll leave it with you--because of your experience, have you come across some research that gives some kind of definitive answer on the numbers of refugees we can successfully absorb and integrate into our population annually?

[Chantal Desloges]

On the way it is set up, it's actually a good system. Most of it--the regulations and the act--works, but it's just so slow and cumbersome. It's really just a resource issue. If there were a little more training, a little more money pumped in, and a few more people doing this kind of work, it would really expedite things.

I do a lot of refugee sponsorships abroad, and I've noticed that for some reason the officers seem to think they have to interview every single applicant. I think there are a lot of cases where interviews could be waived, based on very compelling documentary records. We do it in Canada sometimes, where if someone presents a very airtight case to the refugee board, they can approve that person without even having a hearing.

So if they would use their discretion more to waive interviews in the right cases, that would really help a lot.

I missed your last question.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I was wondering if, in the process of doing your work, there was some think-tank research, some extraneous research, on the absorption capacity in the broader population for the numbers of refugees we actually land here.

[Chantal Desloges]

I'm not aware of any studies like that. I could definitely do some research and remit it to the committee, if that would be helpful.

Just from my own perception in doing a lot of this work, at least when it comes to privately sponsored refugees and self-supporting refugees, there's probably an unlimited capacity for absorption, because these people are not taking any resources. They're financially supported by external agencies for at least the first year they're here. So there's absolutely no reason not to increase those quotas.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Hiebert, do you want to add anything?

Unexpectedly--and this doesn't happen very often--we have a few more minutes left.

Are there any additional questions that members would like to ask?

Mr. McKay, please.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. You raised the issue of source countries, and I was thinking about that. You're making a specific case for Uganda, for the specific community.

How would you go about deciding on source countries? For instance, it's a pretty grim situation for anybody who is a Christian in Pakistan.

[Chantal Desloges]

That applies to Egypt as well.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Egypt is another one that comes to mind.

Then I think you described a couple of countries as having sort of fallen off the list. So how would you refresh that list? What criteria would you apply? How do you know what would be a source country at any given time?

[Chantal Desloges]

The problem with the source country designation is it's a bit of a blunt instrument. By that I mean it doesn't go according to the minority or the situation; it goes according to the whole country. So if they only want to add countries to that where there are mass violations of human rights for significant groups of people, source country may not be the best solution here.

Suppose we were to add Uganda to that list. Aside from sexual minorities, how many other kinds of people are persecuted in Uganda? You open it up for basically anybody in the country to make a refugee application and try to prove their case. As I said, it's kind of a blunt instrument.

I would agree with it more for countries like Iraq, where there are sustained mass violations of human rights against not only one small group, but a whole bunch of religious minorities, sexual minorities, and political minorities. It makes more sense in a situation like that.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You described the system as “not bad”, but my guess would be that if you had to prioritize, training and resources would be your number one and number two requests at this committee.

[Chantal Desloges]

Absolutely. Next would be some kind of program to help people who are still inside their country facing persecution.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You also suggested that you didn't like the pre-screening process. I wasn't sure whether you meant that you didn't like the people who were doing the pre-screening process because of allegations of homophobia among Africans, as opposed to the pre-screening process being done in a more neutral way. On the face of it, pre-screening seems to make sense to me, so I'd be interested in your comments on that.