IRCC Deputy Minister Transition Binder 2024 – Refugee Resettlement

Current programs

Canada’s Refugee Resettlement Program is a longstanding humanitarian tradition grounded in the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Canada’s programs:

• Government-Assisted Refugees (GAR) are identified primarily by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as well as other referral partners. The Government provides settlement services and income support for one year.
• Privately Sponsored Refugees (PSR) are identified by Canadians, mostly on the basis of family and/or cultural connections of other recently arrived refugees. Sponsors provide income and settlement support for one year.
• The Blended Visa Office-Referred Program (BVOR) is a program where refugees referred by the UNHCR are identified as cases that could be matched with a private sponsor, who provides settlement support and six months of income support, while the Government provides the remaining six months of income support.
• Refugees are provided access to pre-departure medical services for these three resettlement pathways and health coverage upon arrival through the Interim Federal Health Program.

Context

• According to the UNHCR, the number of people forcibly displaced by persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order grew by 1.6M in the first half of 2023, representing an estimated 114M people globally. This includes:
  • 36.4M refugees, including 30.5M refugees under UNHCR’s mandate and 5.9M Palestinian refugees
  • 62.5M internally displaced people
  • 56.1M asylum-seekers
  • 55.3M other people in need of international protection, including 4.4M stateless persons.
• Refugees are people who have fled persecution, war, or violence and have crossed an international border to find safety. They have been determined to meet the legal definition of a refugee by either the UNHCR or their country of asylum.
• Internally displaced persons are forced to flee their homes, often for the same reasons as refugees, but have not crossed a border to find safety. Unlike refugees, they are on the run in their country of nationality or habitual residence.
• Asylum seekers are people who have fled their home country to seek international protection in another country, but whose request for refugee protection has yet to be processed.
• Other people in need of international protection include some stateless persons, who have been forcibly displaced across international borders and/or require international protection.
• In 2023 Canada resettled a total of 23,305 GARs, 27,640 PSRs and 180 BVORs.

The Resettlement Program is reliant on key partners

Overseas

• The UNHCR is a key humanitarian partner for Canada, supporting the delivery of Canada’s resettlement program as well as global efforts to assist and find durable solutions for refugees and other forcibly-displaced persons. The UNHCR is Canada’s primary referral partner for Government-Assisted Refugees to Canada.
• The Department also works with civil society organizations to identify and refer refugees that may be out of the UNHCR’s reach. Referral partners include: Rainbow Railroad who refers LGBTQI+ refugees; Frontline Defenders and Protectdefenders.eu who refer human rights defenders; and HIAS (originally the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and RefugePoint who refer individuals from urban settings in Kenya.
• The International Organization for Migration (IOM) provides critical logistical support (e.g., interpretation, transportation to and from interviews, orientations, form filling, and transportation to Canada) as well as the delivery of pre-departure medical services under the Interim Federal Health Program.

In Canada

• For GARs, resettlement service providers provide income support and services to refugees upon arrival (e.g. temporary housing, orientation, and links to integration services such as language training) on behalf of the Government of Canada.
• Private sponsors refer cases for resettlement and provide settlement and financial supports to refugees that have been approved.
• Communities in provinces and territories receive refugees based on settlement capacity, family connections, the availability of medical services, and other factors.
• The Department also engages with refugee advocacy and sponsorship groups such as the Canadian Council for Refugees, From Borders to Belonging (representing a coalition of organizations in Canada who champion LGBTQI refugee rights, protection and settlement), and the Sponsorship Agreement Holder Council.
• The province of Quebec operates its own resettlement program. Under the Canada-Quebec Accord, Quebec is responsible for setting its own immigration levels plan and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is responsible for processing and approving applications.

Recent and upcoming Targeted initiatives

• Human Rights Defenders: In 2021, IRCC addressed a mandate letter commitment by adding 250 government-assisted resettlement spaces per year dedicated to human rights defenders. In mid 2023, IRCC grew this stream to 500 spaces per year and deepened its partnership with leading human rights defender protection organizations Front Line Defenders and ProtectDefenders as direct referral partners, along with the UNHCR. Between January 1 and November 30, 2023, 179 human rights defenders were resettled to Canada under this program. IRCC is currently exploring options for a temporary relocation program for human rights defenders.
• Uyghurs: Private Member’s Motion 62 called on the Government to support the resettlement of 10,000 vulnerable Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim who have fled to third countries from China and lack a durable solution. The 2024-2026 Immigration Levels plan approved GAR spaces for the M62 commitment. Redacted.
• Rohingya Refugees: Building on previous Government of Canada commitments, IRCC has requested that the UNHCR refer Rohingya refugees for admission to Canada, and is working with the UNHCR, IOM, United States and other partners to build the infrastructure and processes required to undertake a resettlement effort on a larger scale over time. These referrals and their processing have begun and will fall within planned admissions spaces under the 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan, as follows: Redacted.
• Redacted.
• Yazidis: On December 1, 2023, a public policy was signed to facilitate the resettlement of up to 400 principal applicants and their eligible family members as GARs. The public policy will welcome the family members, extended family members and de facto dependents of previously resettled Yazidis and other survivors of Daesh who arrived in Canada under the Government’s 2017 commitment to resettle 1,200 survivors of Daesh.
• Survivors of sexual and gender based violence in Mexico: Work is underway on a public policy to facilitate up to 100 women (and their children) in Mexico to be resettled in Canada over three years, in response to a request from the World Migration Refugee Council to support this population.
• Private sponsorship intake and processing: To address growing inventories and long wait times in the Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) program, the Budget Implementation Act (2023) included an amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to clarify that the Minister may give instructions regarding processing applications in the PSR program. Work is underway to leverage the new legislative authorities to develop and implement application intake controls for Groups of Five and Community Sponsors with the objective of addressing backlog and processing time challenges.
• Private sponsorship regulations: The Department recently introduced a Program Integrity Framework for the PSR program to ensure that sponsors are meeting program requirements and that sponsored refugees are receiving the support required to succeed. A regulatory package to address gaps in current regulations related to program integrity is currently in process, and is anticipated to come into force in late fall 2024.

International refugee Protection engagement

• The Department leverages Canada’s experience in resettlement through leadership and engagement in international fora, including:
  • Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative: Canada, the UNHCR, the University of Ottawa’s Refugee Hub, and a number of philanthropic organizations collaborate to provide technical and policy tools to support over 15 state and civil society partners develop and expand community sponsorship of refugees programs.
  • Resettlement Diplomacy Network (RDN): Canada is a member of the newly launched United States-led RDN, which aims to leverage senior level diplomatic engagement to unblock barriers and obstacles to resettlement and exchange information on innovative resettlement approaches.
• International engagements: Canada supports the Global Compact on Refugees, which provides a framework for more predictable and equitable responsibility-sharing among states and other actors involved in refugee protection. IRCC’s Minister led Canada’s delegation to the UNHCR’s Global Refugee Forum in Geneva from December 12 to 15, 2023, which is a quadrennial high-level event to reaffirm political, financial, and technical support for the objectives of the Global Compact. A top pledging country, Canada made 40 pledges related to the protection and resettlement of refugees and hosted high-level events on refugee labour mobility, refugee sponsorship, and support to refugee education in host countries. As part of our pledge to support the meaningful participation of refugees in issues that affect their lives, nearly one-third of Canada’s delegation to the Forum was made up of refugee protection experts with lived experience of forced displacement and representatives from Canadian non‑governmental and refugee-led organizations.

Upcoming Milestones

• Canada will continue to be a global leader in refugee resettlement, with plans to resettle 136,615 refugees between 2024-2026, working with the UNHCR, the IOM and civil society organizations overseas and in Canada to do so.
• For the GAR Program, we are in the process of seeking Ministerial approval of the multi-year resettlement commitments, which would allocate a 51,615 GAR admission target for 2024-2026 to:
  • Redacted;
  • Redacted;
  • Redacted;
  • Redacted.
• Canada will focus on the implementation of its Global Refugee Forum pledges, including exploring joining the UNHCR’s Global Alliance to End Statelessness, which launches in summer 2024.