CANADA CAN LEAD WORLD
Even if Canada manages to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the new year, the scope of the problem demands we do much more. A one-time gesture, as crucial as it is for those 25,000 human beings, will be an empty legacy. Human decency demands a fundamental, even a cultural, shift in our national approach to refugee resettlement.
There are, according to UNHCR, more than 4.2 million registered Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries. Canada’s extra 25,000 will barely dent it. It’s worth doing. But it’s only a start.
The fact that Canada has been so divided about the Liberal’s rush project is telling. Some of it comes down to reasonable apprehension about a system that has undergone several bureaucratic changes over the last several years, a system that has evolved in such a way that many Canadians find it baffling. It is fair to ask the fledgling government for reassurance that Canada is equipped for its project. The task over the next few weeks is not only to bring thousands of refugees here, safely, but to tell Canadians how the system can work to accommodate the government’s immediate goals, and how it could work better on an ongoing basis. The more engaged our communities are, the more successful our resettlement programs will be.
Most refugees, once they have fled over a border, are waiting to go home. But thirdcountry resettlement is the best option for many refugees whose countries of origin are not likely to be safe in the foreseeable future, and whose countries of asylum are also unsafe, or cannot or will not integrate them.
The UNHCR predicts that more than 1.2 million people (or eight per cent of the total refugee population) will fall into that category in 2016. This is a record high number.
But there are only about 80,000 resettlement places available, in about 30 resettlement countries. Canada generally accounts for about 10 per cent of those spots. We’re doing well relative to our peers. But we’re doing abysmally, relative to the scope of the problem. We can pat ourselves on the back, or we can pull up our socks. It’s up to us to define for the history books which one is the Canadian way.
In countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Congo, among others, there are registered refugees who will live out their lives in camps or similar situations because no country is offering them a home and a chance.
This is the legacy Canada can build. We can get bogged down in a false argument between security and humanitarianism, connected to the narrow question of how many Syrians should come in how many weeks. Or we can use this project as the foundation to become the undisputed world leader in refugee resettlement.