Thank you for allowing me to testify about this very important matter.

I hail from Venezuela, the nation that has produced the largest number of refugees and displaced persons in the world, numbering nine million today. This is a shocking fact because Venezuela used to be the fourth-richest country in the world, and it welcomed millions of immigrants in the second half of the 20th century, including my own four grandparents.

Venezuela used to be the world's top oil exporter, yet it is now the world's top people exporter. It is the country with the largest oil reserves on the planet, yet there is no gasoline. I was forced to line up for food, medicines and other necessities, for hours, as the government told me when I could visit the grocery store and what I could buy. Inflation destroyed my family's income and made us extremely poor. I lost power and water in my home frequently, and my childhood was plagued with fear of robbery, kidnapping and murder amid rising crime.

Unlike other refugee crises, the world's largest refugee crisis in Venezuela was not caused by a foreign invasion, by an ethnic or religious conflict, or by a natural disaster. The world's largest refugee crisis was caused by socialism. The socialist policies of the initially democratically elected regime, such as nationalization of businesses, price and currency controls, and limitless government spending and deficits, turned my beautiful nation into a horrible and a dangerous place. That is why Venezuelans flee.

It's not just Venezuelans but also Cubans, Nicaraguans, Eritreans, North Koreans. It's millions of other people, today and in the past, who have died, suffered and fled from socialism. It is not just socialism. Behind rising numbers of refugees, authoritarian regimes of many ideologies and their actions are why most of the world's refugees have fled. Think of Syria, Russia and China. The question before you now is what to do about this.

I'd like to suggest two sets of actions.

The first is to attack the causes of the refugee crisis, and that means taking a stand against evil. You should stop allowing authoritarian regimes to take advantage of you and to enrich themselves. For example, Canada continues to trade with and to enrich the Cuban regime in the hopes that this is the best course of action with the oldest and the most evil dictatorship in our region. Instead of maintaining normal relations with Cuba, an ethical and smart approach is to take a stand against evil and support the Cuban people—not the regime—by helping to provide, for example, free satellite Internet on the island and by funding the democratic resistance.

I think this boils down to a simple question, which is this: If you knew your neighbour was kidnapped in his house, what would you do? Would you call the police? Would you try to save him if there were no police? This is the situation that afflicts well over a billion people around the world. They are kidnapped by tyrants, and it is our moral duty to help them.

Advancing freedom abroad is even more important because you simply can't welcome all of the world's refugees, and they would rather stay in their home countries, with freedom, than go to Canada.

Second, you must have a rational and effective refugee policy that picks the right number and the right kinds of refugees and that helps those refugees succeed. My research with the Manhattan Institute on immigrant assimilation and its fiscal impact in the U.S. has many lessons applicable to Canada.

First is that the immigrants who are most likely to succeed economically are those who speak the language of their new home country and who are more highly educated, as well as arrive as children or young adults. These are also the immigrants who tend to pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits from the government. Selecting refugees who are younger, who speak English or French, and who are more educated means that you can welcome more of them at no cost.

Canada has a successful, privately run refugee sponsorship program, but a recent explosion in asylum claims and government-funded refugee sponsorship threatens the long-admired Canadian immigration model. Excessively high numbers of less-selected immigrants lead to a strain on public resources and on housing, which Canadians are now feeling and are complaining about.

Canada has already taken a good step to fix this by reimposing visa requirements on Mexicans, but you can continue by limiting government-funded refugee sponsorship and by relying more on private sponsorship.

Subcommittee members, I have met countless refugees, especially in my role as founder of the Dissident Project, my organization that sends immigrants from countries ruled by tyrants to speak at American high schools and to tell their stories. I view refugees as an asset to democracy. You should use the stories of the thousands of people who fled tyranny to come to Canada to educate young Canadians about the privilege of living in a free country. The best thing you can do for refugees is to honour the promise of freedom in Canada, for you and for the world, and not to let your nation turn into another place to flee, like what happened in mine.

Thank you.