By Christopher Mason 
GV Contributor

QUÉBEC CITY - “Why does it take so long to get to Canada as a refugee?”

The young man asking the question was experienced in his topic, but he hoped the members of a panel at a recent conference organized by the  Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) would reveal the answer. 

Identifying himself only as Paul, the man explained fleeing Sudan to a Kenyan refugee camp in 1991, where he remained in limbo until August 2008 when he arrived in Canada. He is not alone. Besides his fellow Sudanese, three camps were established in northeast Kenya in 1991 for refugees fleeing violence in Somalia. 

The camps were seen as short-term measures for 90,000 people. Those camps are still there today, and are home to 267,000 refugees caught between home and efforts to start a new life in a far-off country.

“When I arrived at that camp I thought I would be leaving tomorrow,” he told the panel members. “I was there 17 years. I am here asking the same questions that so many in those camps are asking.” 

Canada has been lauded for an open and effective system of accepting refugees. But in marking the 40th anniversary of Canada signing the UN's convention relating to the status of refugees in June 1969, the CCR brought together refugee experts to identify the successes but also look at where Canada can do better. 

Many of the problems and solutions identified tie directly back to refugees like the questioner named Paul who spend years stuck in camps, moving no closer to returning home nor resettling. Once finally resettled in a new country, many arrive with psychological and medical challenges requiring significant support that is not always available.

Where many say Canada does well is in accepting a significant number of refugees each year (between 10,000-12,000 a year, though less than figures seen in the 1980s and 90s), and providing hearings to judge the individual merits of each refugee claim. 

“Although Canada's system has warts, it is one of the most effective in the world,” said Christine Harrison Baird, an international law professor at Carleton University who previously worked for the  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 

Successes aside, experts gathered at the CCR conference in Quebec City agreed that the government must introduce an appeals mechanism for refugees whose claim has been rejected, something urged by the UNHCR, and also better coordinate and fund the domestic support mechanisms needed to successfully resettle refugees. 

“Forty years ago we didn't have a refugee determination system and now our model is copied around the world,” said Elizabeth McWeeny, president of the CCR, adding though that Canada is “missing a fundamental piece in our refugee determination system and that is the ability to appeal.”

That appeal mechanism is included in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act but has not been introduced.

A report released by Amnesty International in late May underscored the relevance of these discussions, suggesting that the global recession was breeding increased repression of the world's most vulnerable. 

"By the end of 2008 it was clear that our two-tier world of deprivation and gluttony – the impoverishment of many to satisfy the greed of a few – was collapsing into a deep hole," Irene Khan, the human rights watchdog's secretary general, wrote in the report. “Billions of people are suffering from insecurity, injustice and indignity.”

Since the early 1990s in particular there has been a growing trend of protracted situations where refugees are essentially warehoused in camps, at first for days and weeks and then years. 

These camps lead to significant problems for resettlement efforts. The longer a refugee is in a camp, the lesser the chances of returning home and the more severe the resettlement challenges. 

“As time goes on, the needs increase but the resources available to respond decrease,” said Caroline Saint-Mleux, of  Care Canada.

The fact that an increasing number of refugees landing in Canada have been displaced for a decade or more is leading to increased calls among civil society organizations for a coordinated approach to ensure the necessary support is in place to aid the resettlement process. 

“If you've been reliant on a food voucher for 10-15 years you're going to struggle with budgeting,” McWeeny said, adding that medical and social issues are equally challenging.

Unemployment and medical issues in particular are hampering refugees trying to settle in Canada. 

Access Alliance, a multicultural health and community services agency in Toronto, found in a survey that in the first year of arrival, 87 percent of refugees it surveyed were unemployed. Likewise, it found in their third year some 92 percent remained unemployed.

“People just aren't working,” said Meb Rashid, a doctor with Access Alliance. “We need an expanded refugee resettlement network.”

That network is key. But so is working in the source countries to mitigate refugee situations or speed up the resettlement process to minimize the psychological and medical impact on those who have been displaced. 

To address that, the Canadian government in 2008 formed a working group of all its departments and agencies involved in refugee policy-- namely the department of foreign affairs, the Canadian International Development Agency, Citizenship and Immigration, the Canadian Border Services Agency and at times the Department of Defence and the RCMP. 

“The responses to refugee situations had been ad hoc [prior to the working group],” said Jessie Thomson, a senior policy advisor in the humanitarian affairs and disaster response group in the department of foreign affairs and international trade.

In 2004 the UNHCR identified over 30 protracted refugee situations, which the Canadian government working group then took to do an inventory of Canada's role in those regions.

“We weren't aligning our tools strategically,” Thomson said, adding the working group helps understand which department or agency is best suited to respond and where gaps exist.

All of these efforts are part of a growing realization that a one-size-fits-all approach does not address the uniqueness and complexity of efforts to manage and respond to refugee crises.