CCR Resolutions Database

1. UNHCR recognizes voluntary repatriation as one of the three durable solutions and thus actively promotes it when and where conditions permit.
2. These conditions must be not merely transient but fundamental such as the restoration and rehabilitation of infrastructure, restitution of land and lost property, and all other factors which make voluntary repatriation sustainable.
3. It is crucial that refugees, including refugee women, have a say in all decisions and activities that affect them, including decisions and activities on voluntary repatriation.

1. There is a long, 2-3 year backlog of privately sponsored refugee applications.
2. CCR adopted Res. 13, May 02 on long processing times.
3. All government-assisted refugees (GARs) are now referred by the UNHCR (other than in source countries) and CCR has repeatedly been told that there are limited visa office resources.

1. A significant number of refugees applying for private sponsorship are found to be inadmissible pursuant to s. 34(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act;
2. These refugees are entitled to request Ministerial Relief, and an exemption from inadmissibility, pursuant to s. 34(2) of IRPA, on the grounds that it would not be detrimental to Canada's national interest to admit them to Canada;
3. The CIC policy manuals advise visa officers to consider Ministerial Relief only in cases where it is specifically requested by refugees;

1. There are more than 120,000 refugees in the Dadaab camps and 86,000 in Kakuma refugee camp from several different African countries who have been resident there for up to 14 years;
2. Peace processes are underway in the region, which have potential implications to refugees such as possible reduction of services and closure of camps;

1. CCR is celebrating 25 years of private sponsorship in Canada;
2. Canada's resettlement targets, including for private sponsorship, have largely remained unchanged for the past 10 years, even though overall immigration targets have increased;
3. An increase in overall resettlement targets reflects a commitment to refugee resettlement and may lead to an increase in resource allocation to resettlement processing.
4. CCR has consistently maintained the three principles of private sponsorship; partnership, additionality and naming;

1. Stateless people are in a vulnerable situation because they have no protection from a state;
2. IRPA does not specify stateless persons as a group needing protection or eligible for landing on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

1. Refugees from Liberia have continued to flee to Tabour Camp in Ivory Coast and to Buduburam Camp in Ghana;
2. Canadians from Liberia are in regular communication with these refugees;
3. There is presently no hope for early repatriation or local integration;
4. The camps are seriously ill-equipped to protect their residents;

CCR Resolution 8, Nov. 1993 called for physical protection of refugee women in Africa and Resolution 17, June 1994 called for women at risk to have interviews waived;

1. CCR Resolution 39, June 1994 condemned cost recovery fees for Convention refugees and their dependants and requested that processing fees be eliminated for refugees and CCR Resolution 12, May 1995, called the Right of Landing Fee discriminatory, exclusionary and racist and called for the repeal of the Right of Landing Fee for all newcomers to Canada while recognizing the particular burden the head tax laid on refugees;
2. CIC is likely to implement a "user pay" cost recovery fee to pay organizations abroad who are contracted to refer and/or process refugees for resettlement to Canada. The cost recovery mechanism will create additional debt burdens for refugees resettled to Canada;
3. The cost recovery mechanism creates a two-tier system for refugees seeking resettlement because neither sponsors nor UNHCR charge fees to refugees for referral;

1. The CCR is concerned globally with the plight of refugees and refugee welfare in their area or place of refuge;
2. Financial assistance provided by CIDA multilaterally to UN agencies and other coordinating bodies does not always result in improving the actual provision of material assistance (food, water, shelter, non-food items, etc.) to refugees;

1. The Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have agreed on a cessation of hostilities and began peace negotiations to end almost two decades of civil war;
2. Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in refugee camps in India met in February 2003 to discuss the peace process and agree on principles for their possible return home;
3. The refugees have come out with a Memorandum of Concern stating that their return home should be "safe, orderly and as a consequence of a peace process that is transparent, democratic and inclusive with a visible commitment to protecting the rights of all Ceylon's citizens and the restoration of their social and material well-being";
4. The refugees have asked for international support of their principles of return;
5. The principles of return as outlined in the Nallayan Declaration Memorandum of Concern are in line with CCR concerns that refugees have a say in decisions impacting on their lives;

The on-going humanitarian and human insecurity problems continue to plague Iraqis displaced inside or outside the country;

1. In Canada, CIC has engaged a process of revitalizing the private sponsorship of refugees program;
2. CIC has consistently informed Sponsorship Agreement Holders that there are limited resources for processing applications overseas;
3. Currently there are applications for over 10,000 individuals and only 2,900 will be processed in this year;
4. CIC has also given the message that the backlog of private sponsorship applications are due to a high number of cases which do not fit eligibility criteria;

1. The Government, in the context of private refugee sponsorship, claims to be committed to the principle of additionality;
2. Visa post staffing was drastically cut in the mid 90s;
3. The overseas processing time for refugees is disgracefully long. (Departmental informants tell us that currently, from the time the completed IMM8s are received at the visa post until the interview takes place is 21 months in Nairobi and 36 months in Damascus.)
4. The overseas delays make it increasingly difficult to sustain the interest of sponsors in the private sponsorship program;
5. The Government is committed to move toward annual immigration targets of 1% of the population of Canada;

1. Since 1985 many Tibetans have been living in India and Nepal without prospects of local integration;
2. Today the deteriorating political situation in India and Nepal has further placed these refugees in jeopardy;

1. Voluntary repatriation is one of the durable solutions to the problems of refugees;
2. According to repatriation guidelines, sustainable living conditions must be ensured before repatriation operations are undertaken;
3. The current conditions in Afghanistan do not fulfill the required conditions because of security problems, human rights violations and general unrest and instability;

1. Africa continues to be a source of refugees and international migration as a result of internal conflicts and political instabilities;
2. The Canadian Government has classified a number of African countries as ‘Source Countries' of refugees;
3. Refugees from these countries are not benefiting from such classification due to logistical and bureaucratic challenges;
4. The International Region of CIC has not developed any strategic plan to deal with the protection and resettlement of refugees from African Source Countries;

1. A Vietnamese group of about 2000 refugees screened out by the Comprehensive Plan of Action still lives in Palawan, Philippines in very poor conditions and without any prospect of a durable solution for either repatriation or local integration;
2. This group of refugees has ties to Canada through family and other community links;
3. The Vietnamese Canadian community is offering sponsorship under the Private Sponsorship Program;
4. UNHCR has acknowledged that this group of persons is in need of a durable solution;

1. The Canadian Government has enacted new regulations for managing access to the refugee resettlement program;
2. The new provisions require refugees seeking resettlement to obtain a private sponsorship, or a referral from UNHCR or a designated referral organization;
3. No referral organizations have been designated to date, other than UNHCR, and none is likely be designated before the end of 2003;
4. Refugee referrals to the refugee resettlement programme will be insufficient to meet the targets for 2003;
5. There is a limited exception for direct access for refugee referrals in certain geographic regions which the Minister designates;

1. The causes of refugee flows are persecution as well as human rights violations, civil war, extreme poverty, unfair and unjust global economic relationships, and related factors;
2. The industrialized countries have expressed commitment to enter a new, meaningful and effective partnership with Africa in the framework of NEPAD;

1. The human rights situation in Guatemala is deteriorating;
2. The Québec-Guatemala accompaniment project, an organization that works to protect the basic rights of Guatemalans, is undertaking urgent actions;
3. Guatemala is on the source country list;

1. CIC is committed to implementing a model for referral agencies as one of the access control mechanisms for identifying refugees for resettlement to Canada;
2. CCR has expressed some concerns with how the potential models will be designed and implemented particularly with respect to controlling the ability of refugees to access resettlement as a means of protection and as a durable solution and with the impact and implications of these models for the referral partner agencies;

1. The government of Canada has made a commitment to expedite the processing of Sierra Leonean refugees overseas after strongly encouraging Sponsorship Agreement Holders across Canada to get involved in the Sierra Leone special initiative;
2. The situation in Sierra Leone is still dangerous, unstable and volatile in spite of the presence of a 17,000 member United Nations peacekeeping force and the return of some Sierra Leonean refugees who are still internally displaced. The recent influx of 10,000 Liberian refugees also adds to the instability in Sierra Leone;

1. There is an increasing number of reports of deficient services in refugee camps such as insufficient food;
2. These deficiencies have been cited as one of the major factors exposing refugee women to sexual exploitation by those who are charged with distributing food and other humanitarian relief;
3. In several refugee camps in Africa the World Food Program has cut down the food ration for refugees;

There is no consistently applied government policy priorizing refugee processing, the decision being left to individual officers at the posts;