Overseas Protection and Resettlement

1. The situation in Afghanistan has continued to deteriorate such that from the capital city of Kabul alone over 1,000 refugees flee daily, and the country is left void of any supporting infrastructure;
2. Afghanistan remains one of the largest refugee-producing countries as a result of the continuing war;
3. The U.N. has started a process of discussion and negotiations through a U.N. delegation headed by Mahmood Mestiri with the various factions involved in the Afghan conflict;
4. Canada is internationally respected for its commitment to peace, and is seen as an important player with a strong voice at the U.N.;

1. The Secretary General of the United Nations, on November 18, 1994, called for a peacekeeping operation to establish security in the Rwandan refugee camps in the Kivu region of Zaire;
2. The CCR held a day on the lessons from Rwanda on November 24, 1994 at which a number of conclusions were reached;

1. The CCR has passed Resolution # 11 (Nov. 92) and Resolution #18 (Nov. 93) condemning landmines;
2. Anti-personnel landmines continue to kill or injure thousands of civilians, including refugees and returnees, especially from/in: Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq, Mozambique, Somalia and Sudan;
3. Landmines impose a threat to humanity by causing indiscriminate harm and suffering, and render entire regions socially, economically and agriculturally depressed, without the possibility of reconstruction and rehabilitation long after the cessation of conflict;
4. Minister Ouellet has suggested that a Canadian Task Force on Landmines be established; there is also opportunity for involvement in the examination of the Landmine Protocol (Protocol II) of the Convention on Inhumane Weapons (1980) at the Review Conference on the Convention in September 1995;
5. There is an emerging Canadian Coalition on Landmines and an International Campaign to raise public awareness on the issue of landmines;

1. The government of Canada has historically had a commitment to the resettlement of refugees from abroad and indeed this commitment is incorporated in the Immigration Act;
2. The government of Canada has a humanitarian obligation to refugees;
3. Government assistance has always been the primary program for resettlement;
4. Private sponsorship is a complementary program to government assistance and has always been understood by the voluntary sector to be an opportunity to respond to refugees above and beyond the government's commitment;
5. Refugee concerns have been separated from immigration concerns in the ten-year framework;
6. The formation of the "NGO-government Committee on Private Sponsorship" could result in a shift in government practice away from Canada's commitment to the admission of refugees;

1. The CCR is committed to promoting the rights and protection of refugee women, including refugee women at risk;
2. The Women at Risk review is complete and awaiting recommendations;
3. The CCR has developed the following recommendations within its document 'Women at Risk: Developing Recommendations':
   1. REC.1 The Canadian Women at Risk (AWR) programme should respond to women at risk. Whereas the Canadian AWR programme does not respond effectively to women in urgent need of resettlement, special mechanisms should be established, such as doing medical checks upon arrival in Canada, providing transportation grants, making use of Minister's Permits, and establishing processing timelines.

      REC.2 The AWR program should include women fleeing gender-based persecution, either in the country of origin or in the country of asylum.

      REC. 3 The Resettlement from Abroad Category should be established and used for processing AWR. The category should use the definition outlined in Specific Recommendation R7 of the report of Issue Group 3 of the 1994 Immigration Consultation.

      REC.4 The successful establishment component of admissibility criteria should be eliminated for refugees in urgent need of protection, especially refugee women.

      REC.5 Visa officers should accept and process expeditiously the referrals of Women at Risk cases from UNHCR and NGOs without an interview for the details of the persecution experience.

      REC.6 Canada should work with the UNHCR and NGOs in countries of first asylum where this will enable it to respond more effectively to refugee women at risk.

      REC.7 The training of visa officers around the issues concerning refugee women should be further improved, eg. to cover the psycho-social sequelae to trauma and expediting cases.

      REC.8 AWR programme should be managed as a separate programme within Citizenship and Immigration, enabling a more coherent implementation. All categories of women at risk should receive a transportation grant.

      REC.9 Citizenship and Immigration should implement mechanisms to measure the success of the AWR programme, which would include feedback from all programme participants. Research should be conducted on refugee women`s experiences of resettlement, including their adaptation skills and other personal resources. A monitoring system needs to be established to enable the tracking of cases from the point of referral to the end of the sponsoring period. This information would be used in visa training and the improvement of AWR policy and operations.

      REC.10 A full time position should be created within Citizenship and Immigration for the promotion and administration of the AWR programme.

      REC.11 Where no sponsors are immediately available, Canada should utilize reception centres across the country to accommodate women at risk upon arrival for an optional intensive three to six month period of healing and orientation. During this time, sponsors would be found.

      REC.12 The number of women admitted under the Women at Risk programme should increase. Canada should set an annual minimum target of the number of women it seeks to assist through the AWR programme, effective immediately.

There are many refugees in need of protection through resettlement who may fall outside the Convention refugee definition;

1. For refugees from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan, and urban refugees in many countries, there is no possibility of receiving timely or any refugee status determination by UNHCR or a host country.
2. The requirement of host country or UNHCR recognition as refugees in order to be considered as eligible for sponsorship by a Group of 5 or by a Community Sponsor is a de facto limit on the Private Sponsorship of Refugees program that discriminates against refugees who do not have timely or any access to status determination.
3. The CCR has adopted many resolutions over the years in support of non-discrimination in access to refugee resettlement and of family reunification.

CCR has numerous resolutions on refugee resettlement targets and levels, including Resolution 14 of November 2003 on “Refugee Resettlement Targets”;

The Government of Canada is proposing to reduce the maximum age of dependants in the Immigration and Refuge Protection Regulations from under 22 years of age to under 19 years of age;

1. The Department of Citizenship and Immigration has outlined forthcoming changes to Canada’s Refugee Resettlement Program that use both protection and immigration criteria and, among other changes, call for a limiting of the numbers of refugees resettled who have high needs for services and support to achieve integration; furthermore these changes will unfairly disadvantage women refugees, the elderly and other vulnerable groups;
2. The changes include criteria for selection based on Canada’s foreign or economic interests and ministerial interests;
3. Recent changes to Canada’s Immigration Program will ensure that more immigrants will arrive with skills and expertise that will reduce the needs for settlement and integration services and supports;