Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd like to continue along the same lines as Borys. The will of the committee is that these persons be recognized as refugees. The committee had unanimously endorsed a motion to that effect. I don't see a problem with our drafting and tabling a motion that could be debated next

Citizenship and Immigration committee   stepped up to the plate and done a better job than we have on this issue, and I still think that opportunity exists for Canada. I think the country of asylum class is the appropriate way to go, given the experience of these people. Don't accept that they aren't refugees by any

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Hi. My name is Patrick Nguyen and I'm 12 years old. I've never seen my father before, and I live in Toronto with my mother and sister. So far there have been many Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines, and they want to come to Canada. One of them is my father. I really want him

Citizenship and Immigration committee   that the Canadian government accept approximately 500 stateless Vietnamese as refugees has been passed by this very committee. Subsequently, in March 2005 the immigration minister at the time, the Honourable Joe Volpe, announced a new public policy allowing up to 200 stateless Vietnamese

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the example I was thinking of, South Korea, there is mandatory military service for all young men, but a young Korean male couldn't claim to be a refugee. I guess he could try to claim refugee status in Canada by saying that either he didn't want to serve

Citizenship and Immigration committee  These would be refugees who are registered with UNHCR. Don't forget, for example, that we don't register or deal with Palestinian refugees. They are dealt with by another UN agency, and there are a couple of million of them as well. The number we have on our books today is just

Citizenship and Immigration committee   not be asked to do if they were a citizen of Canada, stuff that would be unacceptable here. One example that comes to my mind is something like conscription. Can somebody claim refugee status in another country--Canada, for example--because they live in a country where conscription

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's an excellent question, and it's a question I think that keeps the high commissioner awake many nights in Geneva. We have been very careful to say, first and foremost, that our normal protection work is refugees. That's what we have a mandate

Citizenship and Immigration committee   of them, a small group--I'm not sure of the number--300 or 400 people, are claiming need of protection, refugee protection. Does the UNHCR take any position in terms of that group and whether they would qualify under refugee protection at this stage, or are you prepared to make

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You raised a concern in your statement--I don't have the right diplomatic language, and I'd use different language than you did probably--about the need in Canada for an appeal on the merits of a case. I think we often talk about the refugee appeal division, which is provided

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As Mr. Fleury said before me, the U.S. has a very well-developed system for refugee status determination. In 2005, the U.S. received the second highest number of asylum seekers in the world. Their recognition rate was not too different from Canada's. Last year, nearly 49,000

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Proportionally the vacancies would be about the same. My complement for the appeals side is 37. So I've re-deployed people from the refugee side to the appeals side. I'm still not at full complement in that area. The rest of the vacancies would be on the refugee side.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I still have time, what effect is the European Union going to have on our refugee claimants, since that safe third-party loophole allows us to push refugees back to other safe countries? What impact do you think that will have on Canada?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I'm new to the committee, so I'm assuming that the countries of origin for most of our refugee claims are from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan. What are the top three or four countries we receive refugees from?

Citizenship and Immigration committee   months. I am not happy and will never be. I think when you look at the provinces and the responsibilities they assume on refugee determination, it's very important. My other concern, of course, is with appeals. We never had a backlog on appeals; we were always rendering decisions