Speaking Notes

The Honourable Joe Volpe, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, at the Consultative Committee on Practices and Procedures of the Immigration and Refugee Board

Ottawa, Ontario, May 17, 2005

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Thank you.

It’s a great pleasure for me to be here today. I would like to thank the Chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), Jean-Guy Fleury, as well as his staff for their hard work in organizing this event as well as for this invitation to speak with you this morning.

I would especially like to thank each and every one of you for attending this very important meeting. Fora such as this give us all an important opportunity to share ideas on how Canada can build on its solid foundation in order to do even more for individuals in need of our protection. We might not always see eye to eye on every single issue. But I am confident each of us shares the same heartfelt desire to continue strengthening Canada’s humanitarian traditions both here at home and around the world.

This stakeholder forum also give us a chance to talk about where we see things going and how we can work more closely together in order to ensure that Canada’s refugee policies reflect the broadest consensus and the widest range of input from as many of you as possible.

Today’s forum also gives us all an opportunity to talk about some of our collective successes as well as some of the important initiatives now underway throughout the refugee continuum — including at the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) — that will further improve and streamline Canada’s inland determination system. So let me welcome everyone.

I think it goes without saying that the past few months have been hectic. I made a commitment as part of my six-point plan to continue to look at Canada’s refugee system. I said that what we need is a fast, fair and efficient system that meets our service delivery goals by quickly landing those in genuine need of protection and quickly removing those who are found not to need it. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is contributing to make that vision a reality.

CIC has made substantial progress in reducing intake of non genuine claimants and the IRB has reduced substantially its inventory. Together, we are now examining how our approved refugees can be landed faster and reunified sooner with their family.

As part of this commitment to a more streamlined refugee determination system, reforms are also continuing at the IRB. Streamlining of existing processes and expedited hearings allow members to hear more cases and finalize more claims in a fair and humane way. The Board is also continuing to take steps under the Chairman’s Action Plan that will make the system even more efficient and fair. I fully support all these initiatives and I am confident you’ll hear much more about them over the upcoming sessions, as well as from comments which I know Jean-Guy Fleury is eager to present.

My focus today will be on the international arena and what we have accomplished over the past year. I’d like to speak with you about some of the ways the Government of Canada is working to ensure that refugees around the world can have many of the things that we in the industrialized countries take for granted — hope, dignity, and justice while making a meaningful contribution to the economies and societies where they settle.

I would also like to briefly talk about where I see some of our international efforts going. Canada’s experience with resettlement and local integration puts the country in a strong position to play a leadership role promoting durable solutions internationally. These efforts compliment Canada’s firm commitment to a fair and efficient domestic asylum system.

Providing protection quickly to those who need it is of course a key to the success of the present system. But protection without durable solutions is simply not enough. Today we know that refugee numbers are actually going down. But we also know that more and more refugees find themselves in what the UNHCR calls “protracted situations.”

This essentially means languishing in a refugee camp for several years. The initial concern is to save lives and this is being accomplished; immediate protection is offered and there is access to humanitarian assistance. But the end result is to waste them through unfulfilled economic, social and psychological needs.

Durable solutions in the form of resettlement, local integration or repatriation provide effective, realistic and achievable answers to what would otherwise be an endless cycle of poverty, alienation and exploitation.

Seen in this light, all of us have a vested interest and a moral duty to implement and promote them. This is what we must do. And it is what we are doing.

On resettlement, for instance, Canada in 2005 has a target of 7300 to 7500 government sponsored refugees and 3000 to 4000 privately sponsored refugees. These are targets which my department is working extremely hard to meet. In addition, this year, we expect to bring about 4000 dependants of refugees to Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada today is playing a very important role internationally in helping to promote the importance of durable solutions for refugees in camps. Last year, Canada was successful in leading a process that culminated in the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations endorsing and accepting a new Multilateral Framework of Understandings on Resettlement (MFU). This was accomplished in cooperation with sixteen governments, the European Commission, and the International Organization for Migration.

This is an important accomplishment of the former High Commissioner’s Convention Plus initiative, which was an outgrowth of the Global Consultations and the Agenda for Protection. This framework provides countries with a mechanism to help develop enhanced burden and responsibility sharing agreements. Work has begun to more effectively link the agreement to other components of the Convention Plus initiative.

The Multilateral Framework of Understanding is designed to make it easier for countries to take on resettlement initiatives by clearly spelling out the main principles such work should follow. My hope is that the new Framework signals the start of an even stronger international commitment to cooperation and dialogue on finding comprehensive solutions to refugee situations so that refugees can more easily do what they consistently tell aid workers is their goal — to begin rebuilding their lives in peace, dignity and security.

Another important initiative on the world stage has been Canada’s presidency of the Inter-Governmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee and Migration Policies (IGC).

This is an important forum which brings together decision makers to engage in an honest and open dialogue on migration or refugee issues that affect their jurisdictions. As this year’s chair, Canada had the opportunity to lead states in finding ways to implement long-term and lasting solutions for refugees around the world through ongoing dialogue and international cooperation. The support Canada was able to obtain from other member countries within the IGC is indeed encouraging.

It is especially heartening to see IGC member states beginning to embrace a whole-of-government approach to offering durable solutions. This approach tries to connect issues related to developmental assistance, humanitarian aid, and asylum with the provision of durable solutions in different parts of the world.

The Netherlands, who will succeed Canada as IGC Chair, has chosen the whole-of-government approach as the theme of its year of presidency. Canada will work in close cooperation with The Netherlands to develop exchange on this theme.

Canada also recently hosted the Tenth Regional Conference on Migration — also known as the Puebla Process — to discuss some of the ways we can work together to ensure migration benefits everyone.

The conference brought together countries from North and Central America to discuss how we can work together to ensure migration benefits everyone.

Until just a few years ago, migration was looked upon as a stand-alone subject, almost simplistically: “How many refugees are there in the world, and how many can the receiving nations take in?” Thanks, in large measure, to the influence of these regional migration processes, the phenomenon of humanity on the move has taken on a much broader context.

It now embraces the full gamut of social considerations, evolving almost in step with the arrival of the New Millennium. When we think of migrants, we must now think of technical and policy areas like health care, human rights, access to education, exploitation of the vulnerable, repatriation, secure borders and mental health, to name just a few. This is an enormous responsibility for host nations to assume.

In many ways this past year has been one of going home. Millions of individuals fleeing war, internal strife or persecution are finally getting the chance to begin rebuilding their lives in places like Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia and certain parts of Africa. There’s still a lot of work to do. But the world is a much different place for many refugees than it was just a few short years ago. Thanks in part to Canada’s efforts, new multilateral efforts are underway. And there’s a much stronger global focus and commitment to finding durable solutions including a renewed interest in resettlement as a durable solution.

I am immensely proud of our work on the world stage. All of us can be especially proud of Canada’s role in Afghanistan. Nearly 3.5 million refugees have returned home since 2002 — with 775,000 returning this year alone. The plight of individuals in places such as Darfur, Sudan of course, remains a major concern that the international community needs to work very hard to address.

But elsewhere in Africa we are seeing an unprecedented number of repatriation operations. The peace accord ending civil war in Southern Sudan also brings hope for the repatriation of 500,000 individuals from neighbouring countries. The three year Sierra-Leone project is now complete, for example, after more than 270,000 people chose to return home, and more than 250,000 refugees have also returned home to Angola since the signing of the peace accord in 2002. The UNHCR has also recently begun an operation to help nearly 330,000 Liberians to repatriate, while in Europe we’ve now witnessed the one-millionth returnee to Bosnia and Herzegovina — a remarkable achievement in its own right. So it is perhaps fair to say that some things are slowly improving internationally. But there’s still much work to be done.

We need to find more durable solutions for more refugees around the world. We need to put aside partisan differences and find new ways to work together on the international stage so that this remains a priority for every country, and not just Canada.

Speaking about the refugee camps that still existed 20 years after the Second World War, the very first High Commissioner for refugees once noted that such places should “burn holes in the conscience of all those privileged to live in better conditions.” Today these words ring as true as they did more than fifty years ago. All of us have a profound moral obligation to offer durable solutions to refugees from around the world.

The Government of Canada has taken some steps forward in this regard. But we cannot act alone. We need strong international partners and agreements. We also need to hear from everyone concerned.

The Government of Canada has often relied on your expertise to help craft better programs, policies and legislation. And we shall continue to do so in the future. We need your ideas and input. We need to hear from all of you on how we can continue to uphold and strengthen Canada’s humanitarian traditions. Today we need more collaborative dialogue. That’s what’s important. And that’s one reason why I am here.

We need to engage in a constructive, open and rationale dialogue if we are to ensure that Canada continues to meet the protection and settlement needs of refugees — especially in light of today’s changing global realities. Camps are no longer enough. Together we need to find a way to continue to contribute to international efforts to find durable solutions for refugees in genuine need of Canada’s protection.

Thank you.