Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, just very briefly, and thank you very much, sir, for your statement. It's quite compassionate and compelling. One of the main aspirations of the global compact for migration is to enhance the rule of law and to ensure due process of law in migration policies around the wor

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That was very well said by Stéphane. In many respects, the longer-term picture about migration patterns—and I'm not talking about refugees here—is that we need to look at what leads people to move. Oftentimes, it's a lack of opportunity at home. The commitment of Canada and othe

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, somebody who crosses without authorization crosses without authorization.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There's nothing that prohibits that terminology. Normally, what the UN would say—but it's not a requirement and it's not censorship—is that it's someone who crosses irregularly. It is possible to use “illegal” as well. We prefer the term “irregular”, but we're not going to sancti

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Perhaps Stéphane could comment.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much. You asked specifically what the implication for Canada would be of stepping away. I think there are three main implications. First, there would be a loss of co-operation, which is desperately needed, and trust to be able to address what is fundamentally a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, in fact—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, it's not a rapporteur process at all. There's no new special rapporteur that's foreseen with respect to this compact, and in fact right now there is not a rapporteur but a special representative for international migration appointed by the Secretary General and—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was going to say to you that the review process is meant to be completely voluntary by states deciding what they would like to share with each other in terms of practices and learn from one another, and identifying what works and what doesn't work, and it's—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The decision that these compacts are non-binding were decisions taken by member states. In September 2016, in the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, which was taken by the General Assembly, all member states of the UN said that they wanted to create non-legally bindi

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That will be up to each country and the news media.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Do you mean about reporting standards, media standards? It's fair and accurate reporting.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would be actual statistics, data, tracking of trends, tracking of labour market—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, every context is different. Each state has a different definition. Each state has a different set of reporting and statistical databases. There is an international definition of a refugee—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It will be up to each country to decide how it reports. That provision you were talking about is designed to encourage more evidence-based discourse and evidence-based policy.