It is ironic that the lethal attacks in Paris could define, or at the very least, become an important footnote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's legacy. Along with a Cabinet Committee of nine ministers, the government is being tested at the earliest hours of its mandate to address predictable concerns that its election platform calling for the admission of 25,000 Syrian refugees by year end, may compromise the safety of Canadians. Battening down the hatches is an impulsive and politically expedient response to terrorism attacks. But the concerns for security although valid in their own right, largely arise from a lack of understanding of the refugee review and selection process. It would be short sighted to use the events in Paris as a reason to reverse or water down the government's policies on Syrian refugees who form part of the world's largest humanitarian crisis since WW II.
Canada's refugee practices are long standing. The screening and selection of Syrian refugees will target a pool of more than 3.5 million people located in Jordanian, Turkish and Lebanese refugee camps and not the nearly 1 million that travelled to Europe unchecked. The vast majority in these camps are registered refugees who opposed the Assad regime and fled Syria's violent civil war, long ago.
Selection of Syrian refugees by Canadian authorities will typically follow three phases. The first, already well underway, begins with the input of representatives from The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, knowledgeable in Syrian affairs who will interview registered refugees in the camps. Candidates are carefully profiled and people targeted for re-settlement would include those who are deemed vulnerable while excluding candidates with a concern of previous direct or indirect involvement in conflict. The second phase would involve a lengthy interview with a Canadian visa officer who would question each candidate and verify that answers given are consistent with known facts. The third phase includes a formal security review by CSIS which involves checking the profiles of candidates with local and international intelligence and multiple data bases. Only a fraction of candidates initially targeted for re-settlement will become selected refugees. It is expected that the majority of referred refugees will be heavily weighted towards single women and children who pose negligible risk to Canada. The chances of manipulating the process and having terrorists slip through, would be reduced to a minimum.
The government is now faced with the challenge of trying to deliver on its election promise without compromising the nation's security. By all accounts Canada's numerous agencies involved have the will to carry out this large undertaking. But there is no logic in pursuing a politically imposed year-end deadline to land 25,000 refugees, a task which even under normal conditions poses obvious challenges. Refugee advocates must be supportive of government efforts to carry out this process in a reasonable, but unofficially revised time frame.
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The content of this article reflects the personal insight of Attorney Colin Singer and needs
