Rising number of refugees requires policy change from feds: report
As the number of refugees coming to Canada continues to rise, a report by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy recommends an increased focus on accepting refugees likely to establish themselves in Canada more quickly, as well as streamlined practices to help reduce claimant case backlogs.
The report, authored by Robert Vineberg, suggests additional resources to sufficiently welcome 35,000 to 40,000 refugees annually in Canada.
The government-assisted refugees program, which designates 5,000 spots per year for those enduring extreme hardship, should also welcome an equal number of refugees likely to adjust to life in Canada more easily within one year of their arrival, the report recommends.
“As source areas for refugees diversify, fewer refugees are literate in a western language or any language for that matter. This makes acquisition of English or French an even greater challenge,” wrote Vineberg, the former director general of Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Prairies and Northern Territories Region.
“It may be worth considering a 50-50 split between selection of those in most need and those most able to establish themselves for a number of reasons.”
Calgary Catholic Immigration Society chair Fariborz Birjandian, who arrived in Canada as a refugee 30 years ago, agreed with the recommendation, but suggested that expanding the number of government-assisted refugees accepted each year would be necessary to meet both needs.
“We have people that are highly in need of protection, so I think we should still be committed to that, but that doesn’t mean we should actually eliminate people with high human capital,” Birjandian said.
“The world is changing. People are obviously becoming more desperate. Canada is a country that is known to have a very open door when it comes to refugee resettlement through different processes.”
The report also suggests establishing a refugee processing unit in at least one major office in each region of the country to streamline in-Canada refugee claimant cases.
With backlogs of more than 47,000 claims as of February — which could take up to two years to process — Vineberg recommended shifting the responsibility of who makes the initial refugee claim decision to public servants with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which has offices across the country, as opposed to the Immigration and Refugee Board, which has offices in just Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Birjandian said a more streamlined approach would help ensure a claimant’s case is reviewed sooner to determine if they fit the definition of a refugee and, if not, help deal with them humanely before they’ve already put down roots in Canada.
“It has to be time sensitive,” Birjandian said. “We can’t afford to have people here two or three years and then at the end tell them no, they are not accepted. We have to do our due diligence, but I think the process has to be efficient timewise.”
The full report is available online on the School of Public Policy ’s website.