Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue No. 5 - Minutes of Proceedings - May 18, 2016
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 18, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 11:34 a.m. to study steps being taken to facilitate the integration of newly-arrived Syrian refugees and to address the challenges they are facing, including by the various levels of government, private sponsors and non-governmental organizations.
Senator Jim Munson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Senators and our special guest today, welcome to this morning's hearing of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights on our study on steps being taken to facilitate the integration of newly-arrived Syrian refugees and to address the challenges they are facing, including by the various levels of government, private sponsors and non-governmental organizations.
I'll introduce our senators first, and then I'll introduce our guests this morning.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, Ontario.
Senator Martin: Yonah Martin, British Columbia.
Senator Ngo: Senator Ngo, Ontario.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Nancy Ruth, Ontario.
Senator Hubley: Elizabeth Hubley, Prince Edward Island.
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy, Nova Scotia.
Senator Andreychuk: Raynell Andreychuk, Saskatchewan.
Senator Omidvar: Ratna Omidvar, Toronto.
The Chair: As your chair, Jim Munson from Ontario.
Appearing before us this morning is the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, John McCallum. Joining the minister this morning from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada are David Manicom, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy Sector; Dawn Edlund, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations; and Corinne Prince-St-Amand, Director General, Integration and Foreign Credentials Recognition Office.
We're glad to have you here, minister. We do have a lot of questions for you, and I know you have a statement for us. Please right ahead. Thank you.
Hon. John McCallum, P.C., M.P., Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that might be a subtle hint you don't want me to talk too long, but I can conform to that.
I am delighted to be with you today about refugees. As you know, we committed to 25,000 by the end of February, which we have achieved, and that's private- and government-sponsored Syrian refugees. Further, we are committed to 25,000 government-assisted by the end of this year, and we are on track to hit that target.
I would say I'm the only immigration minister in the world whose major challenge today is not being able to produce refugees quickly enough to satisfy the enormously generous sponsors who want to take them in. You may have heard this reported, but we have not been able to deliver refugees quickly enough and in large enough numbers to satisfy all those who want to sponsor them. In a way, that's a good problem, as it reflects the generosity of Canadians, but it's still a problem, and to that end, we've sent about 40 officials back to the region to expedite the process.
I have committed to all of the sponsors who applied by March 31 of this year that they would have their refugees by the end of this year or possibly a little bit into next year. I wish we could do it more quickly to satisfy the Canadians who are so anxious to receive the refugees, but we really have a capacity issue, and if we were to do more privately sponsored refugees, we would have to do less of some other group, so it is a balancing act.
It does underline to me the degree to which Canadians have come on side and the degree to which this is not just a federal government project or even a government project. It has truly become a national project as reflected in all of those people who want to sponsor refugees.
In terms of settlement, in the aftermath of the Governor General's forum in November, when asked what my three top priorities were, I said housing, housing and housing. We were concerned about housing, but that problem is now largely solved. About 98 per cent of the refugees now have permanent housing.
I think one of the ways we've been helped on that is support from the private sector. One of the ways we've worked to ensure continuing public support for refugees is to work very hard not to treat refugees better than we treat Canadians. To that end, we did not want to provide housing or rent subsidies for refugees, because we're not doing that for Canadians. That's where the private sector was very helpful. They raised over $30 million, led by CN, $5 million, and they helped to provide rent subsidies to refugees and they've made announcements across the country. But that's private sector money. That's not government money.
Partly through those efforts, and partly through the extremely hard work of the settlement agencies, we have managed to house almost all of the refugees.
[Translation]
The other challenges are languages and jobs. These people will need to learn French or English and they will need to find jobs.
[English]
I think we are making good progress in those areas. Those issues are certainly not resolved, especially when you look at the government-assisted refugees. The typical demographic profile is they speak often not a word of English or French, and often have relatively small amounts of formal education.
We asked the United Nations for vulnerable people, and we got them. We wanted them, so in a sense that's good. The other side of the coin is that it might take more work to prepare people with that demographic profile for success, but the provinces have been cooperating extremely well, and language training is a top priority and is ongoing.
I've and my department have spoken to many employers across the country. There are many sectors that are keen to hire refugees. It won't happen overnight, but just as we achieved long-term success with previous refugees from places including Hungary, Vietnam in particular, Uganda quite recently and other countries, I believe that this wave of refugees will also be a success for our country in the medium term. It is not just a humanitarian act, which it is in the short run, but I think particularly with our aging population, it is an investment in the future.
I might just say, since we have some Maritime senators here, that one of the most enthusiastic regions in the country has been Atlantic Canada, partly reflecting their natural generosity but also their demographic realities. Atlantic Canada is aging faster than the rest of us, so they're quite keen to get immigrants, virtually any kind of immigrants, refugees or otherwise. A lot of enthusiasm has come from that region of the country.
Mr. Chair, in order to leave maximum time for questions, I'll leave it at that.
[Translation]
I will be happy to answer your questions.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, minister, for your opening comments. As an Atlantic Canadian, when I get older, I'm going home, too, to try to help the demographics.
We do have a long list this morning, and, as you know, we would like to have a conversation. We're not a house committee. There's no partisanship here.
Mr. McCallum: That's good to hear.
The Chair: In the sense of the issue of the day, it's extremely important for the public to learn and know more about the difference between government-sponsored refugees and privately sponsored refugees and where there are gaps, and we'll try to explore a few of those as well.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you, minister, for being here. I also want to commend the government on their initiatives of resettling the Syrian refugees. Here in Canada, we view refugees as an asset, not as a burden.
I have many questions, but I will try to keep it to two. In testimony that we heard on May 11, the committee was advised that investment should immediately be forthcoming in the following critical areas: language training programs, which are paramount, because without language training, women will be left behind; and you did touch on language training; education for youth and children; youth programming; skills training for low language and low-skilled workers; funding, which is very important for mental health needs; and affordable permanent quality accommodations, especially for large families. As you know, most of these families are quite large.
Also, we were informed that the financial support at social welfare rates is not enough. This is particularly true for large families, many of whom are currently relying on food banks to feed their families.
How is the government going to address each of these issues that are vital to the integration of Syrian refugees? I'm particularly interested in knowing what measures are in place to ensure that women are not left behind and all children are receiving appropriate and adequate education.
Mr. McCallum: Thank you very much for your kind opening words and your questions.
I guess the bottom line is that in terms of money, when you take in everything so far, we've committed just short of $1 billion for this project. I think that is a lot of money, and it has gone principally to settlement agencies, to support language training, and a good chunk of it has gone to provide income support to refugees, those who are government- assisted, and they receive income equivalent to those on social assistance. As I said earlier, I didn't want to beef up that amount of money and give more to refugees than to others, so we didn't supplement that, but the private sector in some cases did.
In terms of the use of food banks, I think it's not unusual. I mean, when you have an income at social assistance levels, it's not a high level of income, so recourse could be made to food banks. I think we see that. I think officials are looking into this.
There may be a cultural element, because you have to remember that the refugees are coming from an entirely different world. Our world is entirely different from their world. Sometimes they've been living in refugee camps. Maybe it's the norm to be offered meals. I'm not overly concerned about this. Many Canadians have recourse to food banks, and I think that there may be a cultural element that is partly driving this as well.
You mentioned housing. As I said, 98 per cent of them are now in permanent housing. We certainly have programs to provide skills training.
In terms of health and education, those are principally provincial areas, the provision of health care and the provision of education, but we do have some programming to assist refugees in schools. Perhaps my officials could comment on some of that programming in more specific terms.
Corinne Prince-St-Amand, Director General, Integration and Foreign Credentials Recognition Office, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Thank you. Just to add to what the minister has said, absolutely. With this Syrian cohort, the youth component is much larger than past cohorts, and so the existing settlement program does have programming to assist youth. One of our key elements is a program called Settlement Workers in Schools. This program is available across the country and works with the refugee youth in the school system with mentors and advisers, as well as with their families.
It's very important for the entire family to understand how the Canadian school system works, the importance of attending classes, the importance of homework and the importance of getting involved in extracurricular activities so the youth can build those very important youth networks. The youth themselves are twinned with mentors and have advisers to explain to them how the classes work, how to pick their classes — all of the details that you would want to know about the school system. Our Settlement Workers in Schools program is quite important.
Another one we have for middle school students is called WIN, Welcome and Information for Newcomers, and it's a similar program, but it's based on middle school.
In terms of programming for women, if you'd like me to give you a little bit of detail on that, senator, one of our best examples is the Rexdale Women's Centre in Toronto where female immigrants and refugees are provided with culturally appropriate counselling and support groups. They're helped in developing safety plans and how to navigate the legal system. Violence programming is kind of thread into the language programming that is provided there as well.
Similar type programs are provided in Vancouver through our Multicultural Helping House Society and here in Ottawa with Immigrant Women Services.
I would just reiterate, as the minister has said, that over 500 service provider organizations across the country are providing settlement services through our settlement program and have become very adept at that.
The other piece on language I would add is that, for this cohort to attend the language classes, childminding is extremely important. There's increased pressure on our system to provide more childminding and more transportation services so that we can actually get the cohort to the existing classes. I'll stop there.
Senator Ataullahjan: I have just a very quick follow-up. I know the other senators have questions.
I'm very surprised by the words "cultural element" going to food banks. I thought people go to food banks if they didn't have enough food. The "cultural element" has totally thrown me.
Minister, you announced that you're taking another 25,000 refugees. Do we have any refugees coming from refugee camps? My understanding is that most of the refugees who have come now, none of them are from refugee camps.
Mr. McCallum: That's not true, and neither is it true that we are taking another 25,000. We have taken 25,000 up until the end of February, which is a mix of privately sponsored and government-assisted. We have committed to a total of 25,000 government-assisted refugees by the end of the year, but that's not 25 plus 25. We've brought in 17,700 government-assisted refugees already. We have close to 18,000, so we have 7,000 more on the government-assisted refugees.
Senator Ataullahjan: Are any of them coming from refugee camps?
Mr. McCallum: You have to distinguish between the government-assisted and the privately sponsored. The privately sponsored come from wherever the private sponsors find them. The government-assisted are all names provided to us by the United Nations, and those are all people who, by UN criteria, are vulnerable and are appropriate to help as refugees.
I think almost all of them are originally from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Some of them live in camps; some of them don't live in camps. Within Jordan as a whole, I think something in the order of 15 to 20 per cent of the refugees live in camps, and the rest live elsewhere. We're not told which ones are from camps and which ones are not, but they're all vulnerable refugees, and often the ones who are in the camps may be doing at least as well as the ones not in camps.
Senator Hubley: Welcome. It is good to see you.
Mr. McCallum: Thank you.
Senator Hubley: Canadians can do great things.
Mr. McCallum: Indeed.
Senator Hubley: Organizations like the PEI Association for Newcomers to Canada work within communities across Canada to help with settlement and integration into Canadian society. How has the federal government partnered in support of these organizations during the recent resettlement of the Syrian refugees?
Mr. McCallum: Well, as to how specifically we support those specific organizations, I'd ask one of the officials to respond.
Dawn Edlund, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: In general, there's definitely the funding supports, obviously, that go out the door in terms of the settlement program and the resettlement program to, as my colleague mentioned, over 500 service provider organizations across the country. There are the funding supports so they can then create the programming and deliver that programming, whether that's for language or helping people create community connections, helping them find employment, job skills, that kind of thing.
We also did a lot of work, and certainly on our lessons learned exercise with those organizations taught us that we could have done more, in terms of having really good lines of communication — here's what's happening, here's who's arriving in your community, here's when they are arriving. We were able to provide information about the profile of the Syrian refugees coming, both from a human perspective, the level of their education, language skills, those kinds of things, employment history in general, and then also about their health in general, what their health profile was like.
We also held a workshop at the end of November just before the Governor General's forum where we had between 200 and 300 people from the settlement sector, from resettlement, from provinces and territories, et cetera, to go through in detail what our announced plan was and how we were going to deliver on that plan, and then we brainstormed with them about what was going to be needed, when it was going to be needed and those kinds of things.
In the interests of brevity, I'll stop there, but there is a really strong partnership between the federal government and our settlement-providing organizations, and we're learning lessons from them every day and identifying with them the gaps they're seeing on the ground, what kind of programming we need to put in place, what extra funding needs are there, and then making sure we get the money addressed towards those gaps.
Senator Hubley: Mr. Minister, I think you had indicated that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will be funding research so that the Syrian resettlement initiative can be monitored and evaluated. I'm wondering if you have moved on that proposal as yet, and what do you hope to gain from if?
Mr. McCallum: Well, I've been a professor longer than I've been a politician, so I do appreciate the importance of research. This is a major national project that will have lessons we as Canadians can learn and I think lessons that non- Canadians can also learn. There's been a large interest by non-Canadians in what we've done, particularly in our privately sponsored refugee program, which is somewhat unique to the world, and also our ability to mount a processing centre that could operate as quickly and safely as it did.
I've been keen to encourage research. I know we've been in discussions with Dalhousie. They are very keen to lead research in this area. I've met with the vice-president of research, I believe, from Dalhousie and her colleagues in my office. We've also been working with SSHRC. We will be supporting the funding of that and encouraging as much research as we can, not just for one or two years but hopefully studies over a good number of years to examine the evolution of the refugees five, ten and fifteen years down the road.
In terms of the precise dollars, perhaps my colleagues here can add to that, but that's the general thrust.
David Manicom, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy Sector, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: I don't know precise dollars, minister, but we could perhaps provide those figures to the committee.
To clarify, the minister has covered most of it, as he always does, but there are two elements of our research. One is hard, quantifiable data where, because of our linkages between the immigration database and the income tax database, we can produce outcomes based on employment, use of social assistance and income rates by all sorts of variants, whether government-assisted, privately sponsored, country of nationality, gender, age and so forth, over many years.
But it takes at least two or three years to get initial outcomes through that, so there are also shorter term outcomes we're working on through the surveying of immigrants. People want to know things like how many of your refugees are working. That's hard to get good data on because especially privately sponsored refugees may not tell us if they're working or not. We can canvass our partners.
We also have quite a detailed system that my colleague could speak to called iCARE, which is a quantifiable measure of the use of settlement services, which assists us in evaluating how many refugees have been assessed for language requirements and how many have accessed services. There's the shorter term and the softer data, if you will, and then longer term, the harder economic outcomes.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms. Edlund, before I go to the senators, could you clarify between settlement and resettlement?
Ms. Edlund: Sure. The resettlement program is for the government-assisted refugees, and that's to provide immediate and essential assistance on arrival in Canada and the income support. It's helping people find housing and get set up in terms of getting bank accounts organized and getting children registered in schools. That's a separate pot of money from the much larger pot of money for settlement services, which is available to all newcomers to Canada, and that includes the language training, skills assessment, community connections and the like.
Senator Ngo: Thank you, minister. I have a few questions for you. It was mentioned in the committee last week that expectations were created with private sponsors who invest time, money and valuable resources to welcome refugees. Without the support of private sponsors, the resettlement of 60,000 Vietnamese would not have been possible. That is why I'm concerned about the current situation, which might have a negative impact on private sponsors who are getting frustrated and waiting.
Why can't the government hand over government-sponsored refugees to groups who are impatiently waiting to sponsor them? What can you do to expedite the process to meet that target for private sponsorship? Do you have the number of how many private sponsors have signed with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in order for them to sponsor? Do you have that number?
Mr. McCallum: I certainly share your concern that when the Canadian population comes forward with huge enthusiasm, we want to be able to receive that enthusiasm and to provide as many refugees as we possibly can to meet the demands of generous Canadians. I think you know from the Vietnamese boat people experience that a good part of the refugees who came in were a consequence of private sponsorship. There was then, as now, a kind of national outpouring of enthusiasm and welcoming spirit for our new Canadians, whether from Vietnam or from Syria.
I wish I could accommodate that demand more quickly and more completely than I am able to. We have committed in 2016 to a total of 300,000 immigrants of every kind, and the department is working at or beyond capacity to bring in that large number. It is the largest number we've brought in since before the First World War. We cannot bring in more; we just don't have the people or the resources to do so.
If you bring in more Syrian privately sponsored refugees, by definition you bring in less of somebody else, and that's an issue, because we have spouses that are typically waiting two years. Do you want to bring in fewer spouses? We have refugees from other countries that have been waiting, in many cases, a long time. Do you want to bring in fewer of them to make space for more refugees?
In the medium term and the longer term, I think a big part of my job is to raise that capacity in future years through a combination of more money, more efficiencies and so on. But for now, we're pretty well stuck where we are, so we have to make these difficult decisions.
What I've decided is that I am going to accommodate as much as possible of this private demand, so I've committed to honouring all the applications received by March 31, and I believe it's 10,000? 12,000?
Mr. Manicom: It's 12,000.
Mr. McCallum: The number is 12,000. All of those people are due to arrive in this country before the end of the year or early next year. As I said, I'm disappointed that we can't admit more.
There are some settlement agencies who have said we're doing it too fast. Those people may be happy to see a more measured pace of arrivals. We are also clearly going to be admitting more refugees in future years, but that is the best we can do in terms of accommodating the private sector at this time.
Senator Ngo: If that's the case, couldn't you hand over the government-assisted to private sponsors in order to alleviate the problem while at the same time accommodating private sponsorship?
Mr. McCallum: Well, we're all in favour of Canadians coming out to support the government-sponsored refugees in various ways. There had been a move for the private sponsors to find housing for the government-sponsored refugees. That's no longer really an issue because 98 per cent of the government-assisted refugees now have permanent housing.
There were, however, problems with that because we could have had a private sponsor taking in a government- assisted refugee for a while and then the privately sponsored refugee would arrive and the government one would have to leave. There were various reasons we found that difficult to do. In any event, it is now really solved in the sense that 98 per cent of the government-assisted refugees have housing.
There are groups across the country doing various things to help support the government-assisted refugees. That is very important because the typical government-assisted refugee comes here knowing no one, unlike the privately sponsored who have sponsors, so it is important that Canadians engage in various ways to help to integrate and welcome the government-assisted refugees.
Mr. Manicom: I want to make sure the committee is aware that we do have a new and rapidly growing program that does match UNHCR-referred vulnerable persons with private sponsors with a 50/50 funding formula. Most private sponsorship groups wish to sponsor a refugee they have identified themselves. This Blended Visa Office-Referred Program is growing quickly. It did 153 landings as recently as two years ago and will do probably over 4,000 this year.
This, indeed, is a way to match government-assisted refugees with private sponsors. It would have been extremely challenging to have set up a new system to do a matching service during the middle of the airlift, with hundreds of people arrival every day. That would have been a formidable logistical undertaking.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much, minister, for your leadership. You've certainly accomplished a lot in a very short period of time.
Mr. McCallum: Thank you.
Senator Cordy: It's a very positive story, and incredible things are happening across the country. Canadians, I think, have demonstrated a true generosity of spirit, both with their ability and their desire to sponsor refugees coming into the country, including just recently with Fort McMurray. Canadians are indeed very generous people.
Fortunately, Senator Ngo asked one of my questions, so I can move on to some of the others. I also have been getting questions from organizations within Nova Scotia who are waiting. They wondered if they could meet with you, and I suggested there were a lot of people across the country who wanted that and instead I could ask some questions of you.
Senator Ataullahjan raised the topic of language classes. We heard last week when we had organizations from Nova Scotia — the Immigration Services Association — and the Ottawa area that there were lots of openings in the language classes. The challenge was child care in that women were not able to access the language classes because not every facility was offering child care. Have you heard of that before? Have you been dealing with that?
Mr. McCallum: I do think that is a very big issue, because the question was raised about how we welcome the women, in particular. This particular group of refugees, as you know, includes very large numbers of children. Initially, that caused a problem in housing, but I think we've gotten over that. In the longer term, this is probably good for Canada, because we need and want young people. But in the short run, it causes challenges.
If a mother who has three, four, five or six young children wants to learn English — and we want to be able to teach her English — she clearly needs some help on the child care front. One of our officials has referred to that. It hasn't been 100 per cent solved, but I think we are working on improving that situation. Perhaps one of you could clarify.
Ms. Edlund: Yes, we are certainly aware of the situation. As I said a little earlier, we are working with the settlement provider organizations to map out what and where those needs are and then using the extra funding that's been allocated to the department to fill those gaps. Childminding is definitely one thing that's on our list, as well as transportation assistance to help people get there.
There also are some language courses where it's individualized and the language training actually takes place in the couple's home. I know that through an organization here in Ottawa — ELTOC — I have close friends who offer language training to people in their own home. That can be a helpful piece as well.
Senator Cordy: We're fortunate in Halifax. Our mayor, Mike Savage, determined that the refugees would all be given bus passes, which has been huge.
One of the other items raised was mental health. Looking not necessarily in the short term but in the longer term, being displaced from their countries and leaving families, language and many other familiar things could create possible concerns related to mental health. Have you been working with Minister Philpott to look at needs that may have to be fulfilled?
Mr. McCallum: I happen to sit beside her in the House, and we're both from Markham. She was also the chair of our committee on refugees and traveled with me and the defence minister to Jordan some months ago. She has been intimately involved.
I would say that our whole country has challenges in delivering appropriate and adequate mental health care to all Canadians.
Senator Cordy: Good point, minister.
Mr. McCallum: I know Jane Philpott is keenly aware of this issue and, in her discussions with the provinces, is focusing on home care and a big improvement in how we deliver mental health care. If we can't deliver it as well as we would like to, to Canadians, I think the same is likely to apply to refugees.
That being said, obviously they have come from a horrendous situation, and clearly it's likely that a significant number will have mental health issues. That is more generally delivered through provincial systems. We are aware of that and are taking certain actions. I'd like to ask Corinne perhaps, or Dawn, to give you more detail.
Ms. Prince-St-Amand: Senator, you're absolutely right. The mental health issues within any population are difficult to pull out. What the department is doing, through our service provider organizations, is incorporating a lot of that into the language programming itself. There is language programming for the female population, there are special pilots being done for men, as well as art therapy courses for the children that were brought to the hotels to bring out some of those issues. Once the issues are raised, they can be passed on to provincial and territorial officials for assistance.
Ms. Edlund: I would add two other bits of information. If mental health concerns were identified during the immigration medical exams that the Syrian refugees undertook prior to arriving in Canada, we made sure those people were destined to a community where they would have access to support. There's still a scarcity of support, generally, but we wanted to make sure they were destined to a community where that could be helped.
We're also working with a couple of different organizations to develop programming for our settlement provider organizations to help them and their staff identify when there are issues of mental health, family violence and those kinds of things. That will help them learn the markers they need to be aware of and what they can do to help hook that family up with the right level and type of support in the community.
We also have our Syria coordinator, Deborah Tunis, who was chatting with me yesterday. She's in an all-day session tomorrow to speak with people about mental health supports, determining what's needed and making linkages with the provincial and territorial programming to see how we can make that work better.
Senator Nancy Ruth: As I remember the initial announcement, it was Canada's intent to take the most vulnerable. Did the UNHCR do any gender-based analysis, or GBA, when they selected the refugees, and have we done any as they came in?
My next question is related to the research you were planning to do. I know this will take years to accomplish, because you need hard data. How will your department use GBA in these evaluations?
Finally, regarding the women's centres, does the language training incorporate any therapeutic things? Is there any discussion of women's health and, in particular, family planning?
Mr. McCallum: We pretty well took the names UNHCR gave us, and the United Nations developed the criteria as to who was considered vulnerable, not us. Generally speaking, we primarily took families.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Families with two parents?
Mr. McCallum: I don't think that was a requirement. I think most of the ones I met had two parents, but there are some with one parent.
We didn't take that many single males, but an exception was made for the gay community because they were seen by the United Nations to be particularly vulnerable because of persecution in that part of the world. We were really takers, not creators, in terms of the definition of "vulnerable." We relied on the United Nations in that regard.
As the discussion has implied, we are very much focused on being able to teach mothers the language and to provide child care, but that is a work-in-progress.
Mr. Manicom: I'll add briefly that we depend on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the identifying of refugees. However, the vulnerability indicators are agreed with the group of resettlement countries on a regular basis in Geneva. Certainly, we have a standing program for women at risk — women in particularly vulnerable situations, in refugee camps or in urban settings, remembering that those outside the camps are often in more precarious positions than those inside the camps. Amongst the various indicators, women in a situation where they don't have adequate protection, have been subject to sexual violence and so forth are a very common high priority for resettlement in this part of the world and generally speaking.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Do we know how many families came with two parents? How many are single-parent led, and how many are male-led or female-led? Do we have those statistics?
Mr. Manicom: That data can be run. I don't know if we've done that analysis yet.
Senator Nancy Ruth: When these monies are given out for settlement and resettlement, how do you choose the head of the household? Is it one parent, or is the money split between two parents? That will have a great deal to do with integrating into this culture. That's really what's behind my question.
Mr. McCallum: It's a good question but not one I know the answer to in terms of the payment of the income support.
Senator Nancy Ruth: For me, it's part of doing the gender-based analysis.
Ms. Edlund: The payment of the income support is to the family unit, however that's composed, with their start-up costs and then the income support.
Senator Nancy Ruth: How is the bank account accomplished? How does the transfer of dollars happen?
Ms. Edlund: That's with the Resettlement Assistance Program service provider organizations. They help people set up the bank accounts so they can get the Child Tax Benefit. I don't know specifically what they're doing, but we could ask.
We know that of the people who arrived to the end of February, about 49 per cent of them, were women and 51 per cent were men. I don't believe we've run statistics on what the family composition is in terms of single or double- headed families; but I think that's something we can have available.
Mr. McCallum: That's an interesting question, and we will try get the answer to you.
Senator Andreychuk: Minister, there are two areas where I encourage you to do the research. Having monitored many families from a provincial base in court and in social services, et cetera, I know that there is great focus on families and integration, but as the years go by, those problems are still there with many families. We need to know how many and what their needs are. They need to be tracked and resources have to be given, and often at the provincial level, so your job would be to work with your provincial counterparts to ensure that those facts are there.
My question is one of fairness for refugees. I see those who are fleeing from Syria right out of the fight and into Europe by whatever means they can. We have chosen the UNHCR route, which I think is laudable. But there are so many other refugee camps around the world and so many people waiting. How do we explain to Canadian citizens the issue of fairness amongst refugees?
I'm particularly concerned with the recent events in Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world, which the Kenyan government is expecting to dismantle, saying they were safe to go home. What do we do with the lines of the Eritreans who are saying that their applications are taking longer than the Syrians?
I realize it's a difficult situation and that there are Canadian expectations. Canada has always been fair, so how are you going to address all these issues of fairness in the long run?
Mr. McCallum: That's a very good question and a difficult one to answer because there's so much suffering and hardship around the world. We would like to try to help everywhere, but we can't.
First, we have let in four times more refugees in this current year than in previous years, so we've certainly stepped up our action. We've focused on Syria but haven't cut back on other countries. We've kept them more or less constant in order to focus our incremental effort on Syria. I think that's the right thing to do because this was the worst refugee crisis the world has seen in decades.
The fact that we stepped up was the right thing to do. It was noticed by others and could hopefully lead other countries to do more as well. We will be participating in a UN-related summit hosted by Obama in September, which will try to engage greater support from the rest of the world.
I would say that Canada is acting on three fronts in this area. For all of our pleasure or pride that we're admitting all these refugees, we have to acknowledge that they're really just a drop in the bucket in terms of the millions and millions of people who are displaced there and elsewhere around the world. We are nevertheless doing our bit to help.
Second, we're also contributing money to international agencies to help support the refugee population in countries like Jordan and Lebanon. That's a second and important part of what we're doing.
Third, we're doing what we can to help get to the root of the Syrian problem, which is the war. Recently, Canada has been asked to sit on this committee with Russia and U.S. co-chairs.
None of these things are easy. If it was easy to end that war, it would have been done a long time ago. We are working with other countries in that area, as well as international support, as well as taking in refugees ourselves.
Senator Andreychuk: So many have been sitting in refugee camps in equally difficult situations but who don't have access to sponsors or access to the currency of the present war, and they demand our attention. My plea is to factor that in and to work with that. The refugees who have come to Canada have come from all around. They've all been valuable, and Canada's doors should be open on an equal basis.
Mr. McCallum: I'll refer this to Mr. Manicom for a little more information. What you say sort of goes to the debate about government-sponsored versus privately sponsored refugees. Some are saying to let in more private because the public is demanding it, implying fewer government-sponsored. I'm not saying the private ones are not often vulnerable but the ones that are truly vulnerable are the ones we get from the United Nations andare government-assisted. There's a bit of a trade-off there, a balance, between the two types of refugees.
Mr. Manicom: I'm conscious of the time, Mr. Chair. Senator, Canada works closely with UNHCR and other resettlement countries to prioritize resettlement populations. It's a terrible moral calculus. We are working on other multi-year commitments. We completed recently a multi-year commitment to resettle 24,000 Iraqis — a very large group. We resettled 6,500 Bhutanese, along with the U.S. and Australia especially. We are working on multi-year commitments in Africa, Ecuador and Eritrea. In each of those cases, you prioritize one population over another, often working with other countries, saying, "If you can resettle that group, we'll focus on this one." We are doing this with the support of the UN system. It is indeed always the way that you prioritize one group, as we did with the Vietnamese boat people at one time in our history and with Ugandans at other times, and with Hungarians at another time.
The overall program is now is much larger than before. As the minister said, we have not stood down on our other commitments.
Senator Omidvar: I would like to speak to the differential outcomes in integration between privately sponsored refugees and government-assisted refugees. While I'm not suggesting at all that one overtake the other, I want to know if your department is looking at the evidence to determine what interventions can be added to the government-assisted refugees so that they are not so far behind the privately sponsored refugees.
My second question is around integration and employment. In the jurisdiction I come from in Toronto, employers are very keen to employ Syrian refugees. Whereas we get some general information around the skills profile of government-assisted refugees, there is no information, no aggregate information, on the skills profile of privately sponsored refugees. What can you do about that?
Mr. McCallum: Those are both tough issues. I know that privately sponsored refugees typically integrate faster than government-assisted refugees, which is not surprising when you look at the fact that they have a sponsor who will help to nurture them and settle them and that typically they have a higher education level and stronger language skills than the government-assisted. I think historically, that has been the case. My officials can talk about the degree to which that is the case.
I do think that since we took the vulnerable, deliberately, we have a responsibility to nurture the vulnerable. We have put almost $1 billion into this, so it is a lot of money, but I think there may be additional things we could do to support the government-assisted refugees. Perhaps one of my colleagues could comment further.
Ms. Prince-St-Amand: Senator Omidvar, in terms of the outcomes question, the department is undertaking a rapid impact evaluation this summer to look at the initial outcomes of this cohort and to determine what further can be done. That is being done immediately, as well as more comprehensive evaluations further down the line.
The Chair: I'll get Senator Martin to get her question in, David, and you can remember the answer to the previous question.
Senator Martin: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and perhaps the answers can come after the session, because I know we're very low on time. I have a few questions. One is regarding the income support provided through the Resettlement Assistance Program. I notice — I'm a Vancouverite — that for a family of four, it's $1,349 per month for up to a year. We heard from witnesses that some of the families are quite large. Given the housing shortage in Vancouver, almost 0 per cent vacancy rate, I just wonder about the costs and the long-term support to these families and what would happen in such cities like Vancouver and Toronto and places where renting is quite an issue.
For the privately sponsored refugees, although we have heard that they have perhaps had greater success with integration, what happens if a private sponsor, for whatever reason, cannot fulfill the financial and other commitments made? How does the government intervene or monitor that? What happens if a privately sponsored refugee wants to move to another region? That would be a luxury, but there could be various reasons for this. There are so many situations that would pose further challenges, so I'm curious how you prepare for such cases.
Mr. McCallum: I will leave to the officials the specifics of your second question about what precisely we do if the sponsor doesn't meet his commitments.
The first question, focusing on Vancouver and the higher rents, is one of the main reasons why throughout this process I was trying to disperse the refugees relatively evenly across the country. The last thing we wanted was for all of them to be concentrated in Toronto and Vancouver, largely for reasons of high rent.
In terms of income support, the level of income support is at the same level as social assistance. Even in Vancouver, the percentage in permanent housing is now 97 per cent. At least in the short run, that problem does seem to have been addressed. That's partly why we opened new centres in Victoria and other places in British Columbia, to disperse the refugees.
In terms of what happens if the sponsor doesn't meet his or her commitment, what happens?
Ms. Edlund: We can get more specific information for you, but it does happen occasionally that the private sponsor, for whatever reason, is unable to fulfill commitments to the family. We look into that on a case-by-case basis and determine how best to provide the support and what is needed. I can think of a case we had in Calgary, for example, where we worked with our resettlement assistance program service provider organization to make sure the family whose sponsor was no longer in the picture was looked after and had what they needed.
If the privately sponsored refugee wants to move, we have had some instances amongst the Syrian refugee cohort of people who after arrival say, "Oh, wait a sec, I've got a brother who lives in a different city or province," and we have facilitated that family reunification to help people get closer together. Normally, when we are destining people we look first to where they might have family, and for some reason that information didn't come forward, so we have re- destined people to different communities where that's been what they really wanted.
Senator Martin: I have more questions, but I'll hold them.
The Chair: We can ask after. We can get details from the very competent officials who are on Minister McCallum's team.
In closing, minister, I would like to give you the last word. A question hasn't been asked today, and it may be an awkward question. We've been patting ourselves on the back for all the good things that we've been doing, but there are whispers in corners of the country and in other places in terms of — well, I would call it racism, where other people are saying, "How come all of these refugees are getting all of these things when I can't get them?" I would like to get a response from you. How would you respond to people who you do meet who are not as welcoming as we pretend to be, and we really are a welcoming country. But there are those kinds of things that are a part of the conversation, and I wonder what kind of message you would have to say to people who think that way.
Mr. McCallum: Thank you. Nobody is perfect. Nothing is ever 100 per cent, but I think that Canada is blessed with a people who are more welcoming than most. We don't have any party that is explicitly against immigration. When I go speak to people internationally, they always say, "How can you possibly do this? We have all this opposition." My central problem now is being able to admit enough refugees to satisfy the demand from all those generous Canadians who want to receive them.
On an international scale, we do well for various historical reasons. We are far from perfect, and I am acutely aware of this situation, and that is why I have said more than once that we don't want to give more to refugees than we give to Canadians, because we want to preserve this welcoming spirit. By and large, I think we have preserved it mainly because of who Canadians are, but also because we've been careful to proceed in such a way as not to incur the enmity of our opponents in this area.
When mosques are desecrated in Canada — I have heard of a couple of cases — the whole community comes out to help fix it up. We're far from perfect, but Canadians have traditionally been a very welcoming people, and I think we have to nurture that and be careful not to stress it and build on that. I am hugely grateful to the large number of Canadians who have supported this initiative very strongly. You'll never get 100 per cent, but you have to work strongly to do it in a way that people see it as being fair, and fair not only to the refugees but also to ordinary Canadians.
For example, I don't think anyone ever put a refugee in the front of queue for social housing. That would be the best way to turn off Canadians, because there are Canadians who have been waiting for years, sometimes. You have to be careful. I think Canadians are welcoming, but they don't want us to treat the newcomers better than we treat our own people. We're walking that delicate line, but we are blessed, fundamentally, with a very welcoming country, which I appreciate enormously.
The Chair: Minister, we thank you and your officials for adding to our hearing, our conversation and our report. We appreciate it very much.
Before we get under way with other proceedings, I believe Senator Ngo wants to move a motion for another study.
Senator Ngo: Thank you, chair. This is the motion that I'm going to put forth regarding the human rights report on the Special Economic Measures Act as a tool for responding to human rights violations and to consider whether any amendments to the act are necessary: That the committee submit its final report no later than November 30, 2016, and that the committee retain all powers necessary to publicize its findings for 180 days after the tabling the final report.
This is the study that we're going to do in June. We have already agreed to the study, but this is the motion.
The Chair: That's right. It's the Senate of Canada, and there are all kinds of procedural rules on everything. Do you want to talk to it for a moment? This is a study that we agreed to in June.
Senator Andreychuk: I've just filed a bill on exactly this topic. I find it rather curious that it is being framed in the Special Economic Measures Act. This is the study we already accepted. What was said before was looking at sanctions in a very broad way, not going to the bill.
Senator Ngo: This is not about the bill at all.
Senator Andreychuk: But it's exactly the same area of human rights. It's the Magnitsky bill.
Senator Ngo: We're not talking about the bill. We are studying this to determine human rights violations through the SEMA. The goal of the study is to ensure that sanctions imposed through the act effectively target current and serious human rights violators. In undertaking this study, the committee will also review the Government of Canada's means of determining the applicability of sanctions in rectifying particular human rights violations and the infrastructure in place for monitoring the effectiveness of the sanctions that are imposed.
We agreed on this one before you tabled the bill. You just tabled the bill, so this motion might be correlated with it.
Senator Andreychuk: With respect, I haven't seen anything that looked like this. Perhaps the steering committee saw it, but I don't recall this phraseology being part of it. The bill is exactly on the issue of recognizing persistent human rights violations as a violation under the Special Economic Measures Act.
Senator Martin: Are you saying that the bill you have tabled in essence addresses this very thing?
Senator Andreychuk: The matter could be studied in this committee or another committee once the bill receives second reading. It would seem to be a pre-study of a private member's bill.
The Chair: There we go. We need further discussion, I guess. We can have another meeting about this before we rise for the break week. It's only Wednesday. We'll have to take a good thorough look at this. We'll take another look at this in light of the intervention by Senator Andreychuk.
Continuing our hearing, we now welcome Michael Casasola, Resettlement Officer, United Nations High Commission for Refugees. We heard the Immigration Minister, John McCallum, talk about this. The floor is yours.
Michael Casasola, Resettlement Officer, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: Chair Munson, honorable committee members, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure and honour to address the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mr. Furio De Angelis, the UNHCR's Representative in Canada, very much regrets that he cannot be here today. He has directed me to represent the office before this committee.
UNHCR values the opportunity to appear before your committee as you examine the resettlement of Syrian refugees. When UNHCR was created on 14 December 1950, it was given the mandate by the United Nations General Assembly to provide protection and solutions to refugees. As such, Canada's admission of Syrian refugees along with the thousands of refugees of other nationalities that it resettles each year is key to UNHCR being able to fulfill its durable solution mandate.
Canada deserves sincere commendation for its generosity and international solidarity with the Syrian people and the countries neighbouring Syria. UNHCR has expressed our deep gratitude to the government and people of Canada for the opportunity you have given to more than 25,000 vulnerable Syrian refugees in the last six months to rebuild their lives in Canada.
UNHCR also thanks Canada for its pledge to continue to resettle refugees from Syria throughout the remainder of 2016, and we look forward to Canada's participation in future international refugee and resettlement-related forums, where it may indicate its plans for 2017 and beyond.
I would be remiss if I did not also use this occasion to again express UNHCR's appreciation for the $100 million Canada has given to UNHCR in support of our Syrian operations in the Middle East. This, along with additional contributions, puts Canada's contributions this year to UNHCR at around $150 million, which is almost double 2015's contributions, which in itself was a record.
Today, as we find ourselves confronted with global humanitarian emergencies on a scale never seen before, it has become even more evident that we need to provide those fleeing Syria, and others uprooted by conflicts that are no less violent but far less visible, safe, legal alternatives to the chaotic and dangerous smuggling routes they're forced to take today in order to reach safety.
Resettlement is a continuum of activity beginning overseas with the identification, assessment and submission of refugee cases to resettlement countries for their decision and subsequent onward movement. Upon arrival in a resettlement country, there is initial reception followed by the subsequent process of integration, which can take place over an extended period of time.
UNHCR, by virtue of its mandate, promotes and coordinates resettlement among more than 20 countries. It identifies those refugees in need of resettlement based on criteria agreed upon among all resettlement countries, through which UNHCR prioritizes refugees with acute protection needs and vulnerabilities. UNHCR identifies refugees for Canada's Government-Assisted Refugee Program and its Blended Visa Office-Referred Program.
Further, UNHCR's role in referring refugees for resettlement is set out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations. When Canada announced it was going to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees from the region, UNHCR worked closely with Canadian authorities to develop special modalities to do this expeditiously.
As you know, within less than four months, more than 26,000 Syrian refugees had been screened, selected and prepared to start a new life in Canada, an extremely short timespan if one considers that in average resettlement programs the procedures can make months if not years. We welcome the rapid implementation of this humanitarian initiative, which could not have been achieved without efficient coordination, dedication, commitment and the willingness toward innovation by all involved.
With the agreement of Canada, UNHCR identified over 23,000 refugees among the Syrian refugees it had already identified as vulnerable and, with the refugees' agreement, transferred their relevant information to Canadian missions in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt for interview and selection.
Mr. Chair, public engagement has always been an important component of Canadian resettlement. This has been particularly evident to date within the Syrian resettlement movement. In addition to the support provided by the federal, provincial and municipal levels of government, as well as the numerous settlement service providers, there has been an outpouring of civil society activity in support of Syrian resettlement as donors, volunteers and private sponsors. The ability of so many actors to come together so quickly effectively reaffirmed the value of the Local Immigration Partnerships that have been in place in Canada. Where organizations need to scale up their activities, the relevant actors were already known and thematic forums could easily be established for coordination and planning, which were well able to incorporate many of the new actors that came forward as well.
Two months ago, Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, visited Canada. While here, he was amazed with the level of activity and receptiveness toward Syrian refugees, and he repeatedly expressed appreciation for the additional resettlement spaces made available by private sponsors. He also noted the value of both the government-assisted and privately sponsored programs as complements to each other. Through these dual mechanisms, Canada is able to ensure that its program is responding to vulnerable refugees, while enabling it to harness the generosity of Canadians to provide additional solutions, often for refugee family members of persons already in Canada.
On March 30, 2016, UNHCR convened a high level meeting on global responsibility sharing and other forms of admission for Syrian refugees in consultation with the Secretary General to mobilize significant additional commitments and pathways to address the needs of the most vulnerable refugees and to relieve pressure on Syria's neighbours. We estimate that as many as 10 per cent of Syria's 4.8 million refugees fall into this category and that well over 450,000 resettlement spaces will be needed before the end of 2018. We are already well on our way to meeting our goal, with some 185,000 spaces pledged to date by numerous states. Such pathways include resettlement, humanitarian transfer or visa, private sponsorship, medical evacuation, family reunion, academic scholarships, apprenticeships and labour schemes.
Canada was part of this high-level meeting, and UNHCR was proud to showcase Canada's resettlement of 25,000 Syrian refugees as an innovative model and example for other countries to emulate. Canada has shown that a large number of refugees, 25,000, can be moved very quickly out of the Middle East while still having robust processing and screening. The continued interest and involvement of individual Canadians and other groups in Canada in the preparations to welcome and facilitate the integration of Syrian refugees in Canada was also highlighted.
UNHCR appreciates the pledges Canada made at the meeting, including engaging the private sector to provide technical training and or apprenticeships for refugees. Another pledge related to expanding World University Services Canada's private sponsorship of refugees program for refugee students to attend universities and colleges across Canada, an initiative that was highlighted as an example for other countries. In fact, Canada's private sponsorship program is increasingly being presented as an example for other countries as a potential model, given its capacity to increase the number of refugees resettled and engage civil society. Canada has also pledged to support this effort to expand the number of global resettlement spaces through training and technical support.
The settlement of Syrian refugees in Canada is still in its early stages, and UNHCR is expecting that several thousand more will be admitted before the end of 2016 in keeping with the government's pledges. There are a number of reviews and evaluations examining the process and outcomes that have taken place or are expected to take place in the near future. UNHCR is participating in a number of these and looks forward to learning the results.
UNHCR continues to be grateful to Canada and its people in their efforts to help assist Syrian refugees and countries in the region. We want to encourage Canada to maintain its approach, motivation and spirit behind its long- standing tradition of welcoming refugees. Numerous civil servants, NGO representatives and volunteers have worked incredibly hard to enable thousands of Syrian refugees to find a new home in Canada.
It is striking to note that this initiative falls on the thirtieth anniversary of the awarding of the Nansen medal to the people of Canada, recognizing their work to assist refugees — the only time the medal has been awarded to the people of a country. These values of openness and generosity are ones we wish to continue to encourage, particularly for the large number of refugees who remain in need of a solution, such as what Canada has provided for thousands of Syrians to date.
Thank you for receiving me. I would be happy to try to address any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you for your opening statement. As chair, I don't normally ask the first question. I'm pretty fair about things, but I want to make sure, because as a Committee on Human Rights, we're looking at this through a human rights lens. It's in your capacity that you can help us with this question.
What types of obligations does the Canadian government have to refugees who settle here, according to the 1951 refugee convention and other international treaties? To be specific, is Canada respecting those obligations? Could you please explain? I just want to make sure that we get that. I know that the deputy chair had the same question, but bright minds think alike.
Mr. Casasola: I'll try. Thank you very much. Resettlement is a voluntary activity of states. The refugee convention sets outs the responsibilities of refugees once they come on their territory, but there's no obligation of states to provide resettlement as a solution for refugees. It is almost like the funding UNHCR receives, a voluntary activity. But at the same time, if we can't count on a country like Canada to provide resettlement spaces, we're all in trouble because it's a country that is multicultural and has a history of welcoming newcomers.
There is no obligation on states to provide resettlement. In fact, much of our work is of coordination, working with countries, trying to see what possibilities are there in terms of available spaces, what they're willing to accommodate and what opportunities are there, and we coordinate with a number of different countries.
When we measure this question of integration and responsibility, we look at three areas: legal, economic, and social and cultural. From the outset, Canada provides permanent resident status, effectively giving them status with a route to citizenship. That's critically important, and I think it's an immediate success of the Canadian program. It also provides rights for economic opportunities and social and cultural integration.
The only issue, I think, that would ever come up — and that would be one to explore on a case-by-case basis — would be where there might be a situation where Canada would want to return an individual. Say they had conducted themselves inappropriately or are committed to some sort of act for which Canada might want to take away their permanent resident status. Again, that would be on a case-by-case basis. There might be an issue in terms of their protection in returning them to country of origin, depending on the situation in that particular case.
For the most part, Canada is effectively a model.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you for your presentation. My question was asked by the chair, but let me just reword a bit of it. Are there any areas of concern where Canada could and should be doing better in relation to resettlement of Syrian refugees from a human rights perspective?
Mr. Casasola: I don't think we have any particular objections from a human rights perspective. In fact, I would go the other way. As was highlighted by the previous speakers from the government, Canada, when they created this initiative to respond to Syrian refugees, basically said to us that we were to identify based on the criteria of who was most vulnerable. UNHCR, in the course of its registration of refugees throughout the world, has a number of what we call indicators, what we would say if we were to register refugees. In addition to all of their sort of background information, we would also indicate, for example, particular vulnerabilities. Examples have been given already. Say the person was an LGBTI refugee, or they might have been a victim of sexual violence. They might have been a survivor of violence and torture, or they might face forced return or detention. These would immediately identify someone as vulnerable.
When Canada said to us that they were looking for 25,000 refugees, we immediately said, "The people who need it most are these ones who are already identified as vulnerable, and that's about 10 per cent of the population." That's who we selected for this program. There are other vulnerabilities, medical cases, et cetera. When Canada offered this opportunity, we said, "We already have this case that we've already identified refugees as vulnerable," and that's from whom we selected. So we're incredibly grateful for that.
Senator Ataullahjan: You heard the minister's testimony previously. Do you track the refugees that come? A lot of the refugees moved out of Syria, and they were living in rented apartments. My understanding is that — and I'm going back to testimony that a senior CBC official gave in Parliament in February — we've taken very few refugees from camps.
Mr. Casasola: Thank you for the question. When we think of refugees, we often think of the image of a refugee camp, and, globally, only about 30 per cent of the world's refugees are actually in camps. The most common phenomenon is urban refugees. Fifty per cent of the world's refugees are in urban areas, and, in some ways, that's a good thing because they have mobility rights and such. Often, when refugees are in camps, they're not given mobility rights. They're forced to remain there. But it raises a whole new set of protection problems when they're urban because, often, it's difficult to find them and such.
In the Middle East, a minority of Syrian refugees are actually in camps. Those who were identified for this movement were identified primarily from Lebanon and Jordan and, to a lesser extent, in Turkey and Egypt, for a variety of, in many ways, operational reasons. In Lebanon, in particular, again, a minority of the refugees are in camp- type situations. You might think of them as camps because they're almost like settlements, but, technically, they're not a refugee camp the same as the Zaatari camp is, for example, in Jordan.
I don't know the exact breakdown. We could find out, but the process was also quite different, and it might make it a bit difficult to break down. Because we were doing things so quickly, the process we undertook was that after we agreed with Canada in terms of who we were looking at and they agreed we would identify from among the vulnerable refugees, we started the process of communicating with the refugees themselves saying, "Are you interested?" We reached out to about 60,000 or so Syrian refugees and said, "Are you potentially interested in going to Canada?" We did an initial SMS message. That's how we communicate with refugees in the region. Then we followed up with phone calls.
Those who were willing were about, in the end, 23,000 who said, "Yes I'm willing to have my case considered," and then we would interview them at that point. It's possible, for example, that a refugee in a camp may not have shown up for an interview but the ones from urban areas did. But that was the pool from which we selected. It was based on the willingness of those refugees who effectively said that they wanted to go to Canada and were willing to share this information with the Canadian embassies in the regions so that they might be considered for resettlement.
Senator Andreychuk: Just a clarification: You're saying urban refugees as opposed to camp refugees, if I understand. I know the old system of camps and what rights they have. Mobility is restricted. They don't get recognition by the host country for movement and work, et cetera.
Mr. Casasola: It depends on the country.
Senator Andreychuk: I'm thinking of Dadaab, of the big camp. How are the urban ones, then? How do they move around? What are their rights?
Mr. Casasola: The situation varies from country to country. Kenya has an encampment policy. With the five camps in the Dadaab area, they're supposed to remain in those camps where Kenya is hosting them. In other countries, for example, in the Middle East, Turkey is a good example. They started off with the approach of camps on the borders, but, over time, they allowed many more Syrian refugees to live in urban areas. Again, you're working in different contexts in different countries in terms of what laws they have in place and what flexibility they're willing to provide, but most of the world's refugees are actually living in urban areas.
Senator Andreychuk: Do they have some ID?
Mr. Casasola: That's a good clarification. That doesn't mean they're not registered. We, in fact, encourage registration, and every refugee that we would have referred to Canada was already registered with UNHCR.
The challenge with urban environments is that it can sometimes be more difficult to reach out to these refugees because, in a camp, it's easier to plan programs because they're all there. You know how many are there. You can figure out how many girls and plan your program, for example, if you're going to set up a primary school and a program for primary school education for girls. In an urban setting, we've had to use different methods to reach out. For example, often we'll work with refugee outreach workers, so you work with other members of that community to help you find those refugees to get the word out.
We're having to develop new techniques in the same way that, for example, World Food Programme, in an urban setting, has been moving away from distributing food as an item, grains of rice, and giving out more bank cards, where they can effectively go and buy their own food. It's a different technique but the same objectives.
Senator Ataullahjan: Talking about the refugee camps and our study, Senator Andreychuk had a study about the mandates of UNICEF and UNHCR. We heard that, in Jordan, the refugees are all in camps, while, in Lebanon, they are in urbanized areas.
What I would like to talk about is vulnerable groups, and I specifically want to talk about the young girls. We've been hearing stories of how men are driving into camps and getting married to 13-year-olds and how girls are being trafficked. What can we do to help those groups? In what way? It seems like an impossible task, but it's happening.
Mr. Casasola: It's a serious concern for us as well, of course. We've been concerned about the situation of refugee children, an Syrian refugee children in particular, because we've seen examples of primary school-age children in the workplace, for example, and families using what we would describe as inappropriate coping mechanisms, such as the marriage of young girls. You also see situations where children aren't leaving their homes. They may leave their homes once per week. The big problem — and you may see it with the Syrian children coming to Canada — is the gaps in education. They're not attending school.
Part of the problem we face is a funding shortfall. Many of the agencies still don't have the money we need to provide assistance to Syrian refugees at the level we would like to or that they need. We're oftentimes making difficult decisions. Certainly this is a concern for us, and we've made a number of statements and actions, along with UNICEF. I don't have a specific solution other than the problems we face with the limited financial resources. Certainly it's on our radar.
Senator Nancy Ruth: You said that Canada had given about $150 million —
Mr. Casasola: To UNHCR so far this year.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Canada had an obligation since 1995 to do gender-based analysis. Were there any strings attached to this $150 million that would work with perhaps the young girls who are married or sent off for an hour or two? Did Canada intentionally ask the UNHCR to spend monies to alleviate this issue?
Mr. Casasola: I'm not sure of the exact breakdown of the $100 million that Canada provided that was specifically tied to Syrian refugees. Certainly Canada is very active in our governance. In fact, I believe they are the vice-chair of our executive committee and will soon become the chair of our executive committee.
Certainly when they give us funding, there are many questions and strings attached in terms of where they would like it directed and reporting requirements. I'm not sure about the gender-based analysis and whether any of that funding was linked to gender. I know about $10 million was linked to resettlement activities to support our work. I'm not sure about the $90 million remaining. The remaining of the $150 million is also support for UNHCR globally, in terms of all our activities around the world, not just for Syrian refugees.
Senator Nancy Ruth: How would I find an answer to my question?
Mr. Casasola: We can find out and get back to you.
Senator Nancy Ruth: That would be great.
You talked about women who had experienced sexual violence and the LGBT community. In those two different communities, of all the people you sent to Canada, what percentage was in each of those categories?
Mr. Casasola: I'm not sure. There are several stages between our identification and the actual cases that came here. It would be difficult. I can tell you numbers in relation to refugee women at risk. Over 10 per cent of the refugees we identify for all resettlement countries are identified as refugees, women at risk.
One of the challenges is that we have seven different categories when we identify refugees in need of resettlement. We have legal and physical protection needs, survivors of violence and torture, women at risk, medical cases, family reunion, children at risk and a lack of foreseeable alternative durable solutions.
What happens oftentimes with particularly refugee women at risk is that when they're identified as at risk, they're oftentimes also identified as having a legal physical protection need. For example, they are a victim of violence, so they might be referred on the basis of a legal physical protection need, or they might be referred on the basis of women at risk. It's sometimes difficult to track statistically. We know from our global referrals that over 10 per cent of the refugees we've been referring to all resettlement countries are women at risk.
Senator Nancy Ruth: The LGBT community could be in more than one of those categories.
Mr. Casasola: Right, usually legal and physical protection needs, yes.
Senator Nancy Ruth: What percentage of those would be female?
Mr. Casasola: I don't know. It's an interesting question. We've had a lot of support in the Private Sponsorship program in Canada, and the LGBTQ community has been very active, but I honestly don't know. Part of this is also because IRCC determines admissions, not us. We are at the point of referring the case. After that, it's up to the resettlement country to decide.
Senator Ngo: Thank you, Mr. Casasola. The minister just mentioned that all the government sponsorship is based on the UNHCR registrations.
Mr. Casasola: Right.
Senator Ngo: For private sponsorships, right now, according to the minister, 12,000 people are waiting. Do you think the government position that they cannot hand over government-sponsor to the private group is for any particular reason, because they are not registered by the UNHCR or what?
Mr. Casasola: One of the interesting things that David Manicom referred to earlier has been this development of the Blended Visa Office-Referred Program, which came out of the 2012 budget, which was small originally. The interest has exploded. There are people who are very much interested in assisting and sponsoring UNHCR-identified cases.
The reason I've heard is because sometimes they think we are identifying the most vulnerable, and that interests them; they want to do the most they can. This has provided an excellent mechanism for people to respond. It's a difficult tension, and I appreciate what the minister said in terms of they are admitting more people.
The High Commissioner was also in Canada, as I mentioned, and saw this expansion of interest, and we don't want to cool that interest in the sense of people walking away frustrated from the experience.
To be fair to everyone, this year, if Canada meets the targets it has set out, it will resettle more refugees than any year ever in its history, going back to the Immigration Act of 1976 when they first set out the fact that there was a refugee program.
It's a tension we appreciate, but it's also something we're interested in. That being said, I think the way the minister was speaking was to the situation of people who are interested in their family members versus the UNHCR-identified cases, and the Blended Visa Office-Referred Program provides that mechanism. The challenge is to ensure there are enough cases that are in the system, because they also take processing requirements. Some of our cases aren't easy. I recognize that, but I'm still confident we can succeed.
Senator Ngo: Is it possible for the private sponsor group to request from the UNHCR names for them to sponsor?
Mr. Casasola: Thank you. That's a good question. Sometimes we do get approached by private sponsors saying, "Hey, would you identify cases for us?" We make our referrals to government. We deal with confidential information, private information. Even those referrals of those cases that I talked about, the mechanism for the identification of what we called "humanitarian transfer," where we went through SMS message and such, one of the reasons we had to meet with those refugees and ask them if they wanted to come to Canada was to sign an agreement that they would allow us to share that private information. It would be difficult for us to refer cases to individual sponsors and waive that responsibility.
What is ideal about the Blended Visa Office-Referred Program is that case has already been approved by a Canadian Foreign Service officer as ready to come to Canada, very much similar to the Indo-Chinese model, when many of the private sponsors were responding to cases that had effectively been pre-approved. In some ways, it would be very difficult for us to refer them directly to sponsors.
The Chair: Do the privately sponsored need to register with UNHCR?
Mr. Casasola: That's a good question. Of course, it's not an easy answer. It's not a requirement under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for a privately sponsored refugee to be registered with the UNHCR.
That being said, within the private sponsorship program, there are two doors — the sponsorship agreement holders and their constituent groups, which would be, for example, the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, or you have the group of five or more. In Quebec they have a different model, a group of two.
For the group of five or more, with the changes in the regulations that I believe goes back to around 2012, it was made a requirement that anybody under the group of five program had to be recognized as a refugee. So not just registered, but recognized. That might be done by the state or it might be done by UNHCR, whoever does that in the respective country.
For this Syrian movement, the challenge with many of the Syrian refugees is that their technical status is asylum seeker in the region, because they have not undergone individual refugee status determination and were not likely going to do that because of our other priorities. What was important was when Minister Alexander said that we're going to recognize them on a prima facie basis as refugees, and that overcame that hump.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you very much. It's always wonderful to hear how wonderfully Canada is doing, and that is true. I want to ask you a question about how well we are doing proportionate to our population vis-à-vis other countries. Are we accepting the most number of refugees based on our population share, or are we somewhere in the middle? I think that's an important question. Yes, we are accepting more refugees than we have ever done, but I want to put this in some kind of metrics, and I was thinking population share is a good indicator.
Mr. Casasola: Sure. Certainly, 2015 and 2016 — and we measure oftentimes by the cases we've referred; we're trying to measure that. I haven't done the math, but right now, by population, I think we would have been the leading among resettlement countries. And I'm talking about resettlement; I'm not talking about the larger question of hosting refugees. In those terms, Canada would pale in comparison to the numbers being hosted by a country like Lebanon, where one in four persons is a refugee. The last I saw, Australia and Norway were actually higher because of their smaller populations and the numbers they were taking in.
Since we are in the process of congratulating ourselves, I will congratulate you personally for your leadership in relation to Syrian refugees in the Toronto area, so thank you.
Senator Omidvar: Let me ask the question differently: In terms of absolute numbers, the United States actually takes in the most.
Mr. Casasola: Absolutely. If we were using the analogy of selling books, they are Chapters-Indigo. They receive somewhere in the neighbourhood of 75,000 or 85,000. Not only are the numbers important, but they invest a lot overseas and make things happen.
When you have, effectively, such economies of scale, I think the United States deserves a lot of credit, not just for the investments they make overseas in the selection of refugees, but also, even though they have such an over- preponderance of the numbers they take compared to other countries, they're very good to work with other countries, including Canada and other countries, to develop consensus on how they're going to work together.
One of the realities of why we focus Canada on the resettlement of Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Jordan was the reality that the United States had not finished completing its embassy in Beirut. As a result, American officials weren't able to work there, so Canada fit that niche. So you see practical coordination. Because the United States was able to cover Turkey, Canada was asked to work in Jordan, Lebanon, et cetera. We work that way among resettlement countries.
But, certainly, the United States deserves credit.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I have a couple of other questions. It's been very insightful. I appreciate that.
How do Canada's resettlement policies and programs compare with other countries? Can we learn from other best practices in how we're doing? How do we really compare with others?
Mr. Casasola: It's interesting you ask that question, because one of the things that's unique — and I believe the minister referred to it — is the private sponsors of refugees program. This is a unique mechanism. There are similarities; for example, the Priority Three program in the United States or the special humanitarian program in Australia. But nothing is as open and has as great an involvement of the public as the private sponsored program.
There's a lot of interest in terms of how can we export that. There's tremendous interest in the privately sponsored program. We hosted a group of Canadian NGOs that went to Brazil in February of this year to basically look at this as an opportunity, because we have countries in South America where the government may make available potential spaces, but we're finding solidarity in the cities themselves. They may not be the scale of the Canadian program, but in terms of the ability to engage society and potential interest, this program is seen as a potential model.
The Migration Policy Institute put out a report in December that looked at the applicability of the privately sponsored program in Europe. It's something we're interested in. Part of the privately sponsored program is the numbers but also that receptivity — the community engagement. So we see value in terms of the program as an example to others.
There is the sharing of practices. One of the things that Canada has done well and that New Zealand is working on is the establishment of benchmarks in how we determine success. They're just starting this way, and that's a helpful conversation. We can't expect all resettlement countries to do things the same way. They have different legal structures, different opportunities and different assets. But we can try to determine what they are trying to achieve. Canada has been on that road, as has New Zealand. That's something we're looking at in terms of trying to take advantage of this to export to other countries.
Senator Ngo: Are the Syrian refugees being treated differently from those from other countries because of the situations we have? I've heard that in Burundi, they are waiting to be processed, but so far, there's nothing from UNHCR. Could you tell me a little bit about the two?
Mr. Casasola: Sure. Among the Burundian refugees, there are effectively different populations: There are those who have escaped the recent violence in that country, and we're not thinking of resettlement of that population. They're in the early stages of a terrible situation, but we're hoping they can go home.
Canada took a large number of Burundians as part of a multiyear commitment it made to refugees from the Great Lakes region — primarily Congolese but some Burundians. There has been a protracted Burundian refugee population in Tanzania and some other countries in the region from which we've been selecting refugees.
While Canada has selected many more Syrian refugees, it still has maintained those commitments and you still see the arrival of Congolese and Burundians. In fact, I've seen the numbers, which I don't believe are public yet, but once you see the number of arrivals in 2015, you'll see the same program that Canada had before for resettlement with the Syrian numbers topped on but not at the expense of.
The challenge that many of the people — and I shouldn't speak for them — but it has been the sense of the processing times and how long it can take.
One of the real drivers of this conversation and this concern is the reality that there are more refugees in need of resettlement than we have available places. We go through an exercise every year of the 15.1 million refugees in the world who are of concern to us. We've estimated that over 1 million are in need of resettlement. But we receive from governments collectively — I used to say 86,000 spaces, but it's more now because Canada has given us more. And the United Kingdom has made a commitment to 20,000 refugees by 2020. The number is larger, but it doesn't keep up with the 1 million. There are, unfortunately, many more refugees in need of a solution.
The other driver of this conversation is the fact that we are not doing well with the other solutions. About 2004 or 2005, about 1 million refugees were returning home every year. In 2014, only 128,000 were able to take advantage of voluntary repatriation. These are the big problems where refugees are in need of solutions.
The Chair: I'm always seeking a few clarifications. You say that, under the convention, we're doing well, but I'm looking at benchmarks. Articles 17 to 19 of the convention address employment. We need this on the record, so I'd like to outline more detail of the provisions of the 1951 convention relating to employment and social assistance. We're doing well, you've said, but are there benchmarks?
Mr. Casasola: I think actually Canada has a reservation under that article, but I can check to be sure.
Canada makes available opportunities as permanent residents. They have opportunities for employment like any other permanent resident. I don't think we've had any concerns in relation to the question of employment for refugees.
I think there has been debate about whether the model makes sense. You can see among the Syrian refugees this challenge of whether they should focus on language training in the short term or focus on employment, but certainly employment is made available as an opportunity the same way as to any other permanent resident in Canada.
Senator Cordy: You said that fewer people are able to be repatriated to their homeland. Your hope would be that if people wish to go back to their homeland, they would be able to. Is it a trend that fewer people are able to return?
Mr. Casasola: I think there are several trends going on. One is the reality of protracted refugee situations, and more and more refugees are in protracted situations. The last I heard was that if you became a refugee today, you could expect to be a refugee for the next 17 to 20 years. Part of that is a symptom of the fact that we have conflicts that are not being resolved.
It's a challenge for us. One of the senators gave the example of Dadaab camp. Kenya, which has hosted a Somali population since in the early 1990s, sees the attention given to Syrian refugees, and they say, "What about this population? When will they see a solution?" So it's a challenge we work with. Unfortunately, in our role as humanitarians, we don't work out peace processes.
The other challenge is the problem of the increased number of emergencies. In addition to these protracted populations, the number of emergencies has increased throughout a number of countries: South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Congo and many more. There is also the Syrian situation and Yemen, of course.
We're struggling with many different emergencies at the same time that we're dealing with the protracted issue, so we run into the reality that, while we have never received as much money from the international community as we have before, it's not keeping up with the need because of the situation we're in globally.
The Chair: Thank you very much for appearing before us today. We really appreciate it. It's added to our study. Hopefully, we're going to be in Toronto and Montreal in the next couple of weeks — and other spots — to continue our hearings. We are looking at this through a human rights lens, and we appreciate your comments, Mr. Casasola. Thank you.
Mr. Casasola: Thank you for having me.
(The committee adjourned.)