Can the Liberals Keep their Word on Syrian Refugees?

25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2015. It is a bold promise. The Harper Government^TM stingy, niggardly approach to the greatest refugee and humanitarian crisis reared its head during the interminable election (an early "October surprise", and one of a few). Apparently part of the reason for the extra-long election was to pounce on Mr. Trudeau making a gaffe or two or three. Instead, it was the CPC that made unforced errors. Chris Alexander's response to an innocuous question by Rosemary Barton was, at the time a "near-catastrophic negative" and, with the benefit of hindsight, we can remove the qualifier. I discussed the changes that the CPC made to privately sponsored refugees and Mr. Alexander's performance to date on the Roy Green show.

Transcript: 

Speaker 1:	Engaging, entertaining, and informative, this is the Roy Green Show across Canada on the Corus Radio Network. Today's guest host, Jeff Courier.
Jeff:	To carry on our conversation about what has become an international humanitarian crisis, and that is of course the refugee crisis I'm talking about in Europe right now. Interestingly enough, we're referring to this as a refugee crisis in Europe when, in fact, it is a global crisis of sorts. Raj Sharma is an immigration lawyer based out of Calgary and joins us today on the Corus Radio Network. Raj, a lot of questions about the origins of this crisis but it's one of those perplexing oddities I suppose that it's taken a single photograph of a child to garner the world's attention. If we had not seen that photograph and if we had not been told that Alan Kurdi's family's intention was to come to Canada, this story would still be one of those kind of remote, "Yes, we think this is terrible," kind of situations. We wouldn't get personally engaged in it to the extent that we have. That's fair, isn't it to say that?
Raj:	Hi. I would completely agree. Whenever we think about refugees they tend to be sort of nameless and faceless. I think that photograph hit home. I have a three year son as well and obviously everyone can relate, I think. That's why it hit home and so [inaudible 00:01:40] refugees weren't nameless and faceless, they were individuals that were willing to risk their lives to have a life worth living. That's why it struck home and why it also struck home was because of that clear sort of intention or that tie to Canada. All of a sudden where we were perhaps resting on our laurels or we were assuming that Canada has this humanitarian or compassionate sort of tradition, we realized all of a second that, wait a second, there's something really wrong.
	For every refugee advocate ... That something's been going wrong in Canada's refugee system for at least the last five years or so, so to us it wasn't anything new. All of a sudden Canadians sort of looked at that photograph and said, "Well, how did this ... How did we possibly allow this to occur?"
Jeff:	When you talk about this system being broken, I want to give you a couple moments to expand on that and tell me where and why it's broken.
Raj:	Well, I used to be a Refugee Production Officer with the Immigration Refugee Board from 2002 to 2004. After that what had happened was that there was a backlog of refugee claims in Canada. Of course, [inaudible 00:02:55] government has been in power for about a decade. To deal with the backlog what occurred is we've had this transformative Immigration Minister called Jason Kenney and of course now his predecessor, Chris Alexander, who's in a bit of the cross hairs these days.
	In essence, to deal with the backlog instead of appointing more decision makers, they actively sought to create disincentives for refugee claims inside of Canada. If you look at it there's been a sort of plethora of moves, and they range from the tragic to the farsical. You saw the denial of healthcare coverage to refugees, women, pregnant women, children, and that of course was reversed by the federal court. That was obviously a disincentive regime. It also, in terms of farsical, you saw billboards being put up in Hungary trying to dissuade individuals from flying to Canada to make refugee claims.
	What they also did, one thing that was little noticed at the time but now everyone is noticing is that in 2012 Canada has allowed private groups, a group of five sponsors, including Alan Kurdi's aunt, to try and bring over refugees. Five people get together, they pool their resources, they assure the government that the refugee is not going to be a burden on the system, and they'll assist that refugee in settlement in Canada. That was changed, and it appears that that was changed to drive down the group of five's sponsorship numbers.
	The briefing note that we now know indicates that they expected that the group of five's sponsorship numbers would drop by 70%. That is the reason why Alan Kurdi's aunt who had sponsored or tried to use the group of five to bring her other brother and the family, that's why that application was refused by our Immigration Department. That's why, presumably, Alan Kurdi's father attempted what he attempted because there was no pathway for him to come to Canada which, of course, his sister had attempted for the brother. This change, what the change is, is that it requires a group of five sponsor to obtain UNHCR designation as a refugee or another country to designate to the sponsored person as a refugee.
	Now, the problem is, is that refugees, they're recurrent, they're episodic, they're not constant. The UNHCR is simply overwhelmed and Turkey is overwhelmed and they're having trouble making individual determinations as to someone being a convention or a refugee or not. That is why it's broken because the group of five sponsorship is effectively stymied.
Jeff:	Raj, typically and I think traditionally, the notion of providing someone safe haven who's a legitimate refugee, the idea is to get them to the closest country possible to their home where they would be safe. Why is this mass migration for example,right now into Europe, do you think, rather than some of the closer Arab countries? Why are United Arab Emirates, Qatar or Syria not taking in people with whom they have a linguistic and more powerful, cultural bind than countries like Germany, for example?
Raj:	That's a great comment. First of all, I think everyone should probably laud Germany in terms of its response. Germany has 80 million people. It, even before this crisis, was accepting about 100,000 or taking in about 100,000 refugee clients per year and accepting 70% of them. That is a complex sort of question. Number one, there's a bit of a myth that's going on which is that refugees actually travel internationally or the bulk of them travel internationally. The reality is, is that the bulk of individuals that are affected by conflict, two-thirds of them are actually internally displaced individuals. We call them IDPs.
Jeff:	Displaced within their own countries, you mean.
Raj:	Exactly, so you've got millions. In terms of Syria, they're displaced within Syria. Then you've got, of the vast majority of refugees in the world, the vast majority, millions of individuals are actually in camps close to their countries or in neighboring countries. Again, Turkey has basically taken in millions of individuals. Turkey is shouldering a huge burden and so that would not actually be that accurate in terms of ... That Europe is receiving this massive flood. The reality is that the vast majority of these individuals that are being displaced are going to, for example, Jordan and Turkey and Lebanon.
Jeff:	Now, Jordan and Lebanon really punch above their weight when it comes to taking refugees, don't they?
Raj:	Absolutely. Those countries have done that. Now, in terms of the Gulf countries. Not ... It is ... I agree. Now, technically it's actually not that easy to get to the Gulf countries. They're not neighboring countries, they do require Visas. What's more shocking in terms of ... Of course, the grass roots and social media within those countries that are shaming their government's policy because zero, zero Syrian refugees have been resettled in those countries. What's more shameful, which I think can't be justified in any way possible, is that Turkey which is requiring billions of dollars to do what it needs to do, these countries, their total commitment, these rich, oil rich countries, their total commitment to Syrian crisis is about a billion. I believe the US has contributed four times that amount. It is an absolute ... I don't understand it, I think it's a moral failing and it's on their conscience and I think that there's no justification.
Jeff:	All right, so their moral failing can't be ours though. What can we do here in Canada in terms of private refugee sponsorship, because I know that's the area you specialize in. What can Canadians do and how realistic is it to say we're going to try to save somebody? I think the average Canadian, Raj, is sitting here saying, "Well, there's no way ..." As I said in a conversation we had earlier ... "We can't evacuate Iraq and we can't evacuate Syria and scatter these folks around the world but neither can be we stand by and do nothing."
Raj:	I agree. I think that it's important to be realistic. At the same time, just because you can't solve the entire problem doesn't mean you can't do something or what is within our control.  I think what's happened is that there's been this sort of failure of leadership. I mean, Chris Alexander has been [inaudible 00:10:16] this crisis has been going on for four years. Last year he didn't even know the total number of Syrian refugees that have actually been re-settled in Canada. In response to this photograph that everyone sort of just hit everyone squarely in the gut, his response to Rosemary Barton was this sort of callous, mean spirited, hyper-partisan response. I think that that's unfortunate. I think that there was high expectations for Mr. Alexander and he's turned out to be the Cadillac Catera of politicians.
	I think what Canadians deserve and I think that what this government deserves, and again which is to put aside the hyper-partisanship and to just say, "Look. This is what we are doing. This is what we can do. These are the numbers that are involved." I think that there's a lot of disingenuous statements that are out there. For example, the Prime Minister who's an economist and apparently should know his way around numbers, conflated the total number of immigrants that we bring in per year with the number of refugees. To say that we bring in the highest per capita number of refugees, for example. That's blatantly false.
	Chris Alexander said that ... He got that letter about Alan Kurdi's family and he said, "Well, I can't personally intervene," and that's blatantly false as well.
Jeff:	Yeah, of course he can. All right, so here's the problem that we face, Raj. I've only got a few second left for you, but the problem we're faced with is now the government's doing its spin. The opposition leaders who five days ago had not mentioned the word, refugee, right? Nobody cared about this situation until we saw this photograph. How can we accept the sincerity of any of the people on the political campaign trail right now when until this photograph was published not one of them had a word to say about it?
Raj:	I agree. It's important not to make, or play politics and it's important not to play the blame game. What I'm advocating for is just a sensible step back from partisanship and practical remedies such as, for example, allowing a group of five, privately sponsored, to remove the restriction that was put into place in 2012 and, for example, to speed up determinations where we can do so. Of course, working with our international partners like the UNHCR, working with Turkey. There were some issues in terms of Turkey's treatment of Kurdish refugees and migrants. That apparently affected the Kurdi family as well.
	I'm just saying, let Canadians be Canadians. What we did for the Vietnamese boat people, a lot of that was private sponsorships. Let's free up ordinary Canadians and they'll do the rest. If the government and these political parties can't do it then ordinary Canadians will do it, I have no doubt.
Jeff:	Raj, thanks so much for this. Good to talk to you.
Raj:	My pleasure.
Jeff:	Raj Sharma is an immigration lawyer based out of Calgary.

However, there was a lot the Canadian public didn't know at the time regarding the then-government's handling of the refugee file. 

Faced with his Minister's demonstrated incontinence, Mr. Harper moved quickly and stepped in. Alexander "suspended" his campaign and rushed to Ottawa to be briefed on an issue that has been gracing the front pages of newspapers for the past 4 years. Harper expressed rare emotion at the image of a drowned child washed to shore, and smartly pivoted the discussion from refugee protection to the issue of security checks. This was later undermined by the fact that his office had intervened and suspended the UNHCR referred process for political reasons.

I discussed the unprecedented interference by the PMO on the Syrian refugee file on AM770 with host and former political leader Danielle Smith. The PMO interference resulted in hundreds of UN referred refugees not being able to come to Canada. 

The Liberals moved quickly, with Liberal leader Justin Trudeau promising to bring in 25,000. There are concerns with this ambitious target. Even refugee advocates point to the settlement resources required post-arrival.These types of decisions are polycentric, require balancing of competing interests and have, as a result, many nested issues, like a matryoshka doll. 

I then wrote about the political chicanery that was being played at the cost of vulnerable lives. It was on October 9, 2015 that I predicted that this would be the last we would hear from Chris Alexander as the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for Canada. We won't hear the nasty, partisan vitriol that characterized this former diplomat in the the new Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, John McCallum. I had the opportunity to be on a forum discussion on immigration with Mr. McCallum last year at Mount Royal.He knows the file having been on the other side facing off against Jason Kenney (a transformative Minister) and Chris Alexander (a Minister that appears to have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity).

McCallum has not backed down from the Liberals pledge to bring in 25,000 refugees to Canada before the end of the year. I believe the government now has a plan to make a plan. Since Alan Kurdi died about two months ago, 700 Syrian refugees have been welcomed to Canada.

Once they have a concrete plan in place, they'll need to bring in three times that number, each week, until January 1, 2016 to meet their target.

Every country is justified in refusing to allow admission to individuals that may be fifth columnists. I discussed this by comparing our societal response to that of honey bees. I think it was a blog article that my colleague from Vancouver, Steven Meurrens, particularly enjoyed (I think his exact response was along the lines that he wanted to partake of whatever substance I was enjoying). However, our concern should be humanity, not terrorism. 

The reality of course is that the vast majority of men, women and children are fleeing barrel bombs, horrific sectarian and religious violence. If you want a review of the arguments against resettling Syrian refugees, David Frum seems to have all the angles covered (with a nod to the Hitchens razor: that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence). 

In terms of security concerns, they still cannot be dismissed out of hand, but can be minimized. As a former Refugee Protection Officer, one of my first cases involved a member of a brutal organization that had sought refugee protection in Canada. The only reason that he was caught was because he was stupid enough to admit his role (quite proudly) in an organization that has targeted and killed religious minorities in Pakistan. The value of security clearances for many individuals that come to Canada to either make refugee claims or permanent residents is probably suspect. The reality is that security and if necessary removal will likely have to occur after arrival. Remember too, that the tragic events of last year occurred from individuals radicalized here. I imagine that it will be easy to pick and choose, in the sea of humanity currently in refugee camps certain profiles of refugee that are unlikely security threats. Women, young children, professionals, anyone with Canadian relatives, and yes, religious minorities, like Yezidis and Christians. I imagine I'll hear some criticism of this last sentence. So be it. 

Can the Liberals keep their promise? Historically, this continent has experience in resettling large numbers of migrants in dire circumstances and both countries have not suffered for that generosity. In the year after the fall of Saigon, the US took in over 100,000 Vietnamese migrants. Between 1975 and 1980, Canada took in 60,000. That institutional knowledge and capability must still exist. 

Resettlement is not the only solution. Indeed, even 25,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall numbers that are involved. There are millions in refugee camps and millions on the move. International diplomacy is also necessary. The Arab Gulf States have contributed far less than the US, Canada and Western Europe, despite their wealth and shared culture, tradition and religion, to the pain and suffering of their brothers and sisters (whatever happened to the Muslim ummah?). Finally, while we are committing massive resources to this worthy goal, we will also need to commit resources to security, intelligence, enforcement and removal in the years to come.