Canadian authorities abroad do not routinely maintain statistical information on the number of persons referred by airline companies for the purpose of document verification, although it is true that certain individual missions abroad may choose to compile figures in order to audit their own workload, where such verifications constitute a significant proportion of mission immigration activities.
Consequently, the government is not in a position to provide country by country figures on the number of referrals involving convention refugees or refugee claimants in their countries of origin.
However, we can say that referrals either involve persons whose documents are subsequently found to be inauthentic and who are attempting illegal travel to Canada, or involve persons about whose documents there are doubts for one reason or another but who are later confirmed to be properly documented travellers. This latter group includes foreign visitors, foreign students, permanent residents and Canadian citizens. While some of those who are confirmed to be permanent residents are persons who were landed as convention refugees or are persons who had earlier made refugee claims, others are persons who were landed as independent immigrants, business immigrants or members of the family class. In addition, it must be appreciated that persons holding Canadian permanent residence documents, whatever the category of landing, are also referred for other reasons altogether, for example to establish whether following an extended absence from Canada they are still entitled to Canadian resident status.
We have no reason to believe that the numbers of referrals involving persons who were landed as refugees or who had earlier made refugee claims are in any way disproportionate to their share of the overall immigrant movement.