Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

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

What does Canada as a country think of resettlement as a durable solution in situations like this, with 200 individuals in sexual minorities, in particular, in Uganda? Is group resettlement a possibility here?

[Debra Pressé]

Group resettlement is an administrative operation we put in place with the UNHCR when we're talking about large numbers of people from a specific camp. I'll use the Bhutanese as an example.

It's something we've only ever done with other countries; it's not something we do alone. Eight countries decided to remove close to 70,000 of the 100,000 Bhutanese refugees that had been living in a specific camp since 1990. The Bhutanese all left Bhutan at the same time for the same reason, all ended up in the same place in Nepal, and all stayed there. There had been no movement in and out.

Under normal circumstances the UNHCR or a private sponsor provides us with a very long form--20 to 30 pages--on the refugee's story. With group resettlement, we told the UNHCR we would take 5,000 of those 70,000. Rather than asking them to give us 5,000 forms of 30 pages each, because we knew the 5,000 were part of a complete, comprehensive census and we had received the complete census, we asked for a shorter form.

Instead of going to the camps in Nepal two to four times a year to do a few at a time, Canada goes in once a year to interview 1,000 people at a time with these shorter forms. The arrivals are staggered. It's not faster; it's just a way to use our resources more effectively. Eight countries are in the camp, and we can't all use the generators at the same time, so we take turns going in.

With regard to the 200 Ugandans, group resettlement is something we use when we have an identified group. We have physical identification. We know who they are and where they are, and nobody else is going to pretend to be those people. When we don't know where they are....

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

Yes, I see. We have limitations. The witness himself said he had difficulty deciding where some of them were and whether he could actually go back to contact them. He said that 200, if I recall correctly, had been in contact with him, but had dispersed to some degree internally. Very few got out.

We can see the problems. You mentioned earlier that Canada really hasn't accepted sexual orientation to the same degree as other--

[Debra Pressé]

No, no. Canada is one of the few countries that recognizes sexual orientation as being grounds for persecution. That applies to both our domestic asylum system and to resettlement.

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

Oh, good. I misunderstood. I'm quite pleased I misunderstood; I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I'm glad you clarified it for us.

I think I must be nearly out of my time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have two minutes and 40 seconds left.

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

Again, is there any real prospect of the urgent protection program being used in this case?

[Debra Pressé]

There are only about 20 countries that do resettlement in the world on a regular basis. About another dozen do it sometimes, on a non-predictable basis. Among the 20 countries, some of us have a formal arrangement with the United Nations wherein we agree to consider a certain number of people for emergency resettlement.

The UNHCR is caring for well over 10 million refugees. They refer between 80,000 to 100,000 refugees a year to the 20 countries who do resettlement, and out of those 80,000 to 100,000, they refer maybe about 300 as truly urgent. Canada has an arrangement whereby we will take up to 100 of those 300 to 400 urgent referrals. There are about four or five other countries that also have that.

So is it possible? Yes, we take referrals from the UNHCR for urgent protection, because it means that you are receiving specific people. It's a very complicated chain. You're talking about getting somebody out of a country very quickly in a few days. There are phone calls. It's a chain of command that goes from the country to us, to our doctors, to make sure the person is physically removed. We have an arrangement with our Canada Border Services Agency. That's where we come up with the number of 100 a year, because we can't tell Canada Border Services Agency to stop all of the hundreds of thousands of things they're doing.

It's a successful program. We are able to take people out within days or weeks, as opposed to months, but again it's a protocol that we have in place with the UNHCR.

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

I take your point, your reaction to the sexual orientation thing. This is new on the horizon, in a sense. In the world there are very few countries that even consider it, which means that the systemic applications needed to ensure that it happens in a smooth way haven't really had time to evolve. What you've just described might....

Again, you must have the UNHCR involved and you have to go through the process. Hopefully all this will filter down to this individual and there may be an opportunity, but there's a long list of folks here, as it's easy to see.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you. That was remarkably well timed. You had nine seconds left.

We turn now to the Conservative members.

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

Mr. Chair, for time's sake, I'll just allow us to go to business. I believe my colleague needs to get to the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That's right. He has already run that by me. He has a motion he wants to present when we go in camera.

We thank our witnesses very much for coming here. You've been very helpful to us in what I think is quite an important matter.

As for the rest of us, we are going to go in camera to deal with committee business, so we'll suspend for a moment.

[Proceedings continue in camera]