[LINK] More on Iraqi refugees and Canada

[rfmcdonald]

Earlier, I'd written about Canada's apparent lack of interest in developing a large-scale plan to take in refugees from Iraq despite the precedent of Canada's earlier admission of tens of thousands of boat people a generation ago. Today, the Canadian government has announced that it will in fact increase its intake of refugees fleeing Iraq.

Canada will accept up to 2,000 of the most vulnerable refugees from Iraq this year, more than twice as many as came in 2007, federal Immigration Minister Diane Finley announced Wednesday in Vancouver.

“What we are doing now is a very big step forward,” she told reporters at a news conference at the offices of the Immigration Services Society of British Columbia. “We can hold our heads proudly on the world stage for what we are doing now.”

The announcement came on the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion. Ms. Finley said the new initiative was in response to an urgent appeal from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the international community to accept more refugees from Iraq.

[. . .]

Those coming to Canada will be among those most at risk, according to the UNHCR criteria, Ms. Finley also said.

The United Nations agency considers factors such as whether a person was subjected to torture or severe persecution, the extreme risks posed to women and children and whether medical requirements were not being met. “We work very closely with UNHRC,” she said, adding that the international agency identifies the priorities for resettlement, not Canada.

Ms. Finley dismissed the suggestion that the Canadian government should direct its efforts to helping displaced persons where they were, in order that they could return to Iraq when the conflict subsides. The first choice is resettlement in their own country, she said. “That is why not as many Iraqi refugees have been placed in the last few years,” she said.

She also rejected the suggestion that Canada should take in more Iraqi refugees. “On a percentage basis, we are one of the top in the world,” she said. Canada has been very generous, she added. “We've taken a leadership role.”

The United Nations agency has reported that more than two million Iraqis have fled to neighbouring countries over the past five years. Canada was among the top three countries for accepting refugees from Iraq last year. Canada resettled about 3,000 Iraqis during the first four years of the conflict.