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

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Yes, but they could make that choice. That's what I wanted to establish.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Ms. Deschamps, please go ahead.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon and welcome.

For a few weeks now, we have been looking into how sexual minorities are being treated. I am obviously wondering about something. Perhaps you could help me out.

To help this minority and since it is related to the immigration system, wouldn't it be more appropriate to refer this matter for study to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, which might be able to provide more practical solutions for what these people are currently experiencing?

[Rénald Gilbert]

To be honest, I am not really in a position to answer that question. I agree with you, but we are not the ones who actually chose the committee.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

No. That's how I see it at the moment. The matter was referred to the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, but I am wondering whether the study wouldn't have more weight if it was done by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

[Rénald Gilbert]

You make a very good point. You are pointing out that the committee that addresses immigration issues also deals with all the other questions, of course.

When a particular group is targeted, we have to look at the impact on the other groups. When we talk about priority, we always mean priority in relation to other groups.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Ms. Pressé, these thoughts came to me while reading your presentation. At the outset, you said that Canada currently resettles between 10,000 and 12,000 refugees from abroad. You said you are expecting the number of refugees to increase significantly. This number will go from 12,000 to 14,500 per year, as a result of the reform to our refugee system.

Could you specify which reform you are referring to in your presentation? Is it because there are more and more applications?

[Debra Pressé]

That's a very good question.

The Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which received royal assent last June, was tied to an increase in the number of resettled refugees that Canada would take. That is being rolled out over a three-year period. As a result the government-assisted refugee number, which up to now had been 7,300 to 7,500, will increase to 8,000 refugees a year. We also received the funding required to increase the program for private sponsorship of refugees program by another 2,000 refugees a year, so the increase is tied to the Balanced Refugee Reform Act.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You've mentioned that Canada helped 10,000 to 12,000 refugees to settle in the country. Would you be able to tell me approximately where most of these people are from? Africa? Asia?

[Debra Pressé]

It's a global program. Last year we took refugees from about 70 different nationalities, but the top source countries for the last several years have been fairly stable.

Afghanistan is one of the top source countries. Colombia has been one of the top source countries. Iraq is certainly a top source country now for us. As well, we are taking a significant number of Bhutanese refugees out of Nepal. The African countries of Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia have been top source countries for many, many years.

It's about 30%, grosso modo, from Africa, 30% from Asia, and 30% from the Middle East.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You also talk about the list of source countries. I am not very familiar with this jargon. Could you tell me how often the department goes over this list of source countries?

You tell us that, at the moment, six countries no longer correspond to the previous definition. You mentioned some countries that requested us to take refugees. Is Afghanistan, for example, on the list of source countries?

[Debra Pressé]

That's a very good question.

As I acknowledged in my opening remarks, the tool has not been as flexible as we had hoped it would be when the class was created in 1998. The list has not been reviewed on a very regular basis. The last time it was reviewed was in 2003, and there were no changes made to it.

The regulations stipulate that to be on the list, a country has to be in a situation in which the entire country is a refugee-like situation. Also, to be on the list, the country has to be—and this is the paradox, even though it's in a refugee-like situation with a civil war and armed conflict going on—safe enough for Canadian immigration officials to go in there and work on a routine basis without putting either themselves or the people they're trying to help at risk. There are very few countries in the world that meet those criteria. It also has to be a country that wouldn't undermine our broader government agenda strategies within the United Nations.

Afghanistan is not on the list because Canadians can't routinely work in Afghanistan and Iraq is not on the list because Canadians cannot go into Iraq, yet those are countries that, at first blush, would appear to have one of our largest refugee populations.

It has been difficult to change the list. It does require cabinet approval. It goes through the regulatory process and therefore requires several government departments to agree. There's a broad consultation. Quite frankly, there are countries on the list now that we know could come off, but we don't want to waste the valuable time of members of parliament by taking countries off when we couldn't add any new countries to the list because the countries that people would want to add today are not countries that we can operate in.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Would you like to add anything else, Mr. Gilbert?

[Rénald Gilbert]

No, that's okay.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

The list has not been edited since 2003. But you must prepare periodic reports or statements. I imagine you must be making recommendations annually to the minister in office on reviewing that list. It is quite a restrictive tool and it could turn into a source of irritation rather than a solution.

[Debra Pressé]

Bureaucrats review and then make recommendations, and, of course, those recommendations are in the purview of cabinet confidentiality.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

At the end of your presentation, you said that in your Nairobi mission, which serves a dozen countries in Africa—I think that's a lot—7,000 applications are still waiting their turn. A lawyer who came to testify last week, if I remember correctly, told us that the process was very long and that an individual had to wait practically 48 months to go through the whole bureaucratic maze.

But then we were given the example of the mission in Damascus, which serves fewer countries, but is able to process some applications more quickly.

Isn't the problem the lack of means, resources and funding? If we added those elements to the mission in Nairobi, for example, we could be more optimistic about processing more applications and doing so faster. We would allow more applicants to be heard and received.

[Rénald Gilbert]

My answer has two parts.

First, it is a matter of resources. So, this year, in 2010, we provided additional resources to the mission in Nairobi. We sent seven additional people to help with the mission on site, mostly because of the large area to be covered, but that's not the only reason. We actually receive more applications in China in a month than we receive in all of Africa in a year. So it's not really the territory that is the problem, but the communication process, which is often difficult. In offices like those in Nairobi—it's not the only place experiencing this—we need more staff to process the same number of applications. So that answers one part of the question.

I believe my colleague has already addressed the second part of the question. A set number of refugees is accepted each year. So the fact that we have more or less staff members does not make a big difference at the end of the day. If we are asked to take care of 2,000 refugees in a year, that's exactly what we'll do. If we were to move resources, for example, from Damascus to Nairobi, we would also have to change the number of refugees that we accept in the two places.

So that somewhat explains the 50-month wait time. It's not that it actually takes 50 months, but there's already a huge waiting list and we are processing the applications that were submitted earlier.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you. Your time is up.

We will now go to Mr. Marston.

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

Thank you for attending today.

I really appreciate the fact that both of you took the time to read the testimony from the particular individual that we're avoiding naming because there was a sense of desperation there. It's quite evident in the testimony. The person was looking for any and all options.

You mentioned in your remarks that generally internally displaced people are not addressed. It's the people who manage to get out of a country. Are we legislatively prohibited from doing that? Am I understanding that correctly, or is it a policy?

[Debra Pressé]

The definition of a refugee is someone who is outside of their country of origin and who can't return because of the persecution. We do have the source country class that was meant to be, as I said, more responsive to allow for that type of response. It has not proven to be as flexible.

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

According to the witness we had here, there are 200 people, basically, who have been named and put into this very perilous.... Many of them are people of means. Often in dealing with refugees, especially from countries that are at war or in severe turmoil, you don't have that option that they have means at all.

Apparently this individual seems to think that most of them do. He made the offer in the testimony to somehow insert himself into the process. When you looked at that part of the testimony, was there any chance for that option? Might there be a way that he could insert himself in where we're not allowed? I doubt it, but it's worth the question, I suppose.

[Debra Pressé]

The legislative framework allows the minister to enter into agreements with other organizations for the purpose of identifying refugees through a private sponsorship organization or through another organization that will only identify, as opposed to providing sponsorship support, so that avenue is there for the minister to choose to enter into an agreement with an organization. The minister will want to enter into an agreement, according to the regulations, with an organization that has very real, concrete knowledge on the ground and is able to actually identify persons, but it comes back to the person needing to meet the refugee definition. If you're still in Uganda, you don't meet the refugee definition.

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

He proposed that they could get into a neighbouring area. As you would have noted in the testimony, he was concerned about the native people in Nairobi, and that some of those people wouldn't feel safe going there in the first place. Your response sounded much different from his perspective on it. Of course, when a person is working in fear, that kind of thing builds along with it.

I think we have to back up a little here. How would this individual go about trying to classify their organization such that the minister could look at it and give it some consideration? Is there anything that this committee could do to facilitate that, or could we direct the person to someone in your office?

[Debra Pressé]

The easiest way would be for the person to express in writing to the minister that they would like the organization to become a referral organization on behalf of refugees they want to identify.