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ABSTRACT
During the global attempt to respond to the exodus of Syrians into neighboring countries and beyond, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) praised Canada for its intention to resettle 25,000 refugees. Even as many Canadians—and their government—were feeling proud of themselves, others responded with discomfort at the accolades being heaped upon Canada, worrying that they were undeserved. This article is an attempt to assess whether Canada’s contribution to global refugee justice deserves accolades or criticism. Canada’s central contribution to global refugee justice has been to resettle refugees; I argue that, compared to other resettling states, Canada does well with respect to admitting refugees for resettlement and with respect to the quality of its resettlement. This contribution is small, however, compared to the overwhelming need, not only for resettlement, but also for additional support for refugees throughout their entire journey. Canada’s overall contribution to global refugee justice, then, is not exceptional.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Phil Triadafilopoulos for inviting me to prepare this article; the kind audience at the workshop Canadian Exceptionalism in Immigration Politics and Policy, at the University of Toronto in November 2019, at which I first presented the work, for their helpful questions and comments; Stéfanie Morris for her research assistance in preparing the article; and two helpful reviewers for this journal for their perceptive questions and critiques.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The precise content of “global refugee justice” is a matter of debate, but it is reasonable to suppose that these are its basic features.
2. This is an incomplete account of asylum-seeking. Some asylum-seekers engage in more complicated journeys including those who arrive in Canada via the United States, or who arrive as students, but whose countries later become embroiled in war and cause them to submit asylum claims. Many Syrians abroad did this as their country descended into war.
3. To clarify, the refugee status is indefinite; the stay in first host countries is hoped to be temporary (as, indeed, is the refugee status).
4. There are other stages, including the exclusion phase for asylum seekers whose claims are denied, the repatriation phase when a country of refuge (or temporary resettlement) has deemed return safe, and the transit stage itself.
5. One might object, saying that given the huge difference in the ratio between refugees in temporary settings and the overall level of resettlement in the world, holding on to such a right is not realistic. Since there are going to be political limits to the abilities of states to resettle refugees, we must recognize that, even if governments could push these limits well beyond where they presently are, the increase would still fall short of what is needed to resettle all refugees in “temporary” situations. As a matter of political will, this objection is correct; but it is important not to reframe the rights that are owed simply because the political will to respect them does not exist.
6. Some states, notably the United States, offer “temporary protected status” in cases, for example, where individuals are fleeing natural disaster. This status does easily not translate into citizenship, however, even though it can extend over many years.
7. I leave aside here the complicated question of who is or should be defined as a refugee, and simply restrict my analysis to those who possess UNHCR refugee status. For more discussion of this question, see Shacknove (Citation1985); Song (Citation2018).
8. Whether it is less costly is a complicated matter, since refugees often require support for decades (especially in states where they are denied the right to work), and because as is noted below, refugees who integrate effectively are net contributors to the resettlement states they join. I thank Felix Bender for forcing clarification here.
9. One might also propose that if refugees are ultimately economic contributors to economies of resettled states, then the desire to resettle is purely selfish for resettlement states; that resettling refugees should perhaps not even count toward fair-share assessments of duties toward refugees. On this idea, see Barder and Ritchie (Citation2018); Vancity.Com (Citation2015); Wangkhang (Citation2016).
10. This does not, however, tell us what proportion of global resources should be directed toward resettlement, only that any scheme for achieving global refugee justice must include resettlement because of the particular needs it meets.
11. Note that the discussion that follows focuses only on refugees who are admitted for resettlement, and not asylum seekers whose claims may in time be accepted.
12. Another oddity of the Canadian response to the Syrian crisis was the way in which it elevated Syrian refugees over other refugees. This elevation was especially clear in the context of the private-sponsorship dimension of Canadian admission, since citizens selecting refugees for sponsorship placed a premium on Syrian refugees over others in equal or greater need.
13. As I note above, it is reasonable to believe integration will take at least 10 years; a five-year range is too short to draw conclusive lessons.
14. A caveat is that, if refugees are disaggregated by country of origin, there are significant differences in rates of employment and income from employment.
15. As the study says, “low-income status is defined as family income below 50% of median income, adjusted for family size” (Crossman Citation2013).
16. There are multiple policy changes that would render the process of attaining “equality” with Canadians faster, and ensuring access to rapid and clear foreign-credential recognition is often cited as the most important.
17. Other major refugee-serving organizations that receive financial support globally are the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
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Patti Tamara Lenard
Patti Tamara Lenard is Associate Professor of Ethics in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa. She is the author of Trust, Democracy and Multicultural Challenges (Penn State University Press 2012). Her work has been published in a range of journals, including the American Political Science Review, Political Studies, Ethics and International Affairs, Review of Politics, and Ethics and Global Politics. Her current research focuses on the moral questions raised by migration across borders in an era of terrorism, especially as it pertains to refugees and irregularly present migrants, the provision of sanctuary, and democratic theory more generally. Her book, How Should Democracies Fight Terrorism?, was published by Polity Press in 2020. She is presently completing a manuscript (with Peter Balint) titled Debating Multiculturalism, as well as Exclusion and Democracy, both under contract with Oxford University Press. In Ottawa, she runs a small organization called Rainbow Haven, which sponsors, settles, and advocates for LGBTQ refugees (https://www.facebook.com/rainbowhavenottawa/).