The following are the principles and priorities CCR will be applying to the Consultations on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways in 2025.
1. Expansion of Humanitarian and Human Rights-based Resettlement
Governments must remain committed to selecting refugees based on protection needs, fairness and human rights. While refugees do contribute economically, resettlement must not be motivated by economic or narrow domestic political considerations.
Global resettlement efforts must respond to growing resettlement needs, consistent with the principle of international responsibility sharing, while maintaining maximum protection impact.
Objective:
Expand pathways for resettlement and complementary pathways, ensuring that refugees are provided with long-term protection and opportunities for full integration into the welcoming country.
2. Complementary Pathways (CP) and additionality
Complementary Pathways can be a key part of diverse resettlement solutions to achieve durable solutions for refugee protection but must be additional to traditional resettlement pathways, must lead to permanent and effective solutions, and should lead to an overall net increase in the number of third country solutions for refugees.
The financial and administrative requirements of CPs should ensure accessibility and not create barriers to participation.
Objectives:
Ensure the pursuit of Complementary Pathways does not lead to decreased resettlement focus and opportunities. Challenge the blurring of distinction between resettlement and CP and counter an emerging emphasis on expanding CP at the expense of resettlement.
Ensure greater effectiveness of complementary pathways as durable solutions for refugees, emphasizing solutions that are permanent, or leading to permanence, with access to social support systems. This includes, for labour mobility and educational pathways, the need to ensure support, services and training before, during and after the relevant CP program for both refugees and employers and receiving educational institutions.
Ensure governments take action to reduce the growing barriers to access CPs including through high fees, and burdensome and costly biometric data requests.
3. Private Sponsorship of Refugees
Private sponsorship is both a critical channel for responding to global crises and a rights-based pathway in support of family reunification.
Objectives:
Bring Canadian experience to the growing international conversation on private sponsorship, with a focus on the importance of:
- Additionality: ensuring that private sponsorship is additional to government resettlement efforts.
- The role of nomination or naming: The capacity of sponsors to name and nominate refugees as critical to ensure a rights-based pathway in support of family reunification and needs of specific vulnerable populations such as LGBTQIA+
4. Equity and Anti-Racism
Equity and anti-racism must be centered in the whole system of resettlement and complementary pathways, including in terms of responses to global crises, selection and processing times, access to settlement services in third countries, and inclusion in the rights and benefits of society longer term.
People with lived experience as refugees must be fully integrated and provided with avenues for safe expression throughout the CRCP process and included in proceedings in a permanent and meaningful way. UNHCR, governments and civil society organizations all have responsibility to support full integration from a lens of anti-racism.
The CRCP must be an environment where LGBTQI+ individuals feel respected, valued, and safe to participate fully.
Objectives:
Promote equitable selection and practices in resettlement and complementary pathways: Ensure that the refugee selection process within the CRCP prioritizes fairness and inclusivity by addressing barriers faced by marginalized groups, such as LGBTQI+ refugees and racial minorities, and ensuring that States’ selection criteria do not perpetuate discrimination.
Address systemic discrimination in integration efforts: Tackle long-term barriers to settlement and integration, including language challenges, low-income status, and intersectional discrimination (e.g., racism, sexism, ableism, LGBTQI+ phobia), ensuring that resettlement services are fully inclusive and accessible to refugees from diverse backgrounds.
Ensure emergency responses are equitable and transparent: Establish emergency resettlement processes that uphold key criteria of equity, transparency, and additionality, ensuring that the resettlement of emergency populations does not undermine opportunities for other vulnerable groups and resources are distributed fairly.
Foster inclusive participation and decision-making: Create systematic opportunities for refugees, particularly from marginalized communities, to engage in shaping resettlement and complementary pathway agendas, decision-making, and policies, while ensuring that institutions like UNHCR, States, and NGOs commit to equity, anti-racism, and inclusive hiring practices.
5. Building Welcoming and Inclusive Communities
Sustained investment in building welcoming and inclusive societies is critical at home and abroad.
Objectives:
Ensure the expertise in Canada in the settlement and integration sector (including from those with lived experience as a refugee) contributes to global efforts to build public support to receive resettled refugees given our knowledge and experience in building welcoming and inclusive communities
Promote the need for NGOs and CRCP partners to build a more positive narrative about the rights and contributions of refugees in countries around the world.
Strengthen efforts to build inclusive communities by investing in long-term settlement and integration programs, including mentorship, cultural orientation, and support services that help refugees integrate socially and economically.
6. NGO Networking and Engagement for Global Collaboration
Foster strong connections between Canadian NGOs, individuals with lived refugee experience, and international stakeholders by ensuring active participation in the CRCP. This includes NGOs working on complementary pathways, as networking is crucial for shared learning and collaboration across borders.
Objective: Strengthening Collaborative Networks and Engagement
- Promote effective networking, learning, and mentorship opportunities for Canadian NGOs and individuals involved in resettlement and complementary pathways.
- Enhance the long-term impact of Canadian NGO engagement in the CRCP by ensuring inclusive processes that facilitate both continuity and access for new and diverse voices.
Note: In Canada, traditional resettlement involves government-assisted refugees and private sponsorship, while complementary pathways encompass educational and labour mobility initiatives.