Thank you, Mr. Chair and the members of the committee for inviting me and my fellow panellists to speak before you today.

The Canadian Council for Refugees is Canada's leading national umbrella representing 200 frontline organizations across the country working with refugees and migrants. For this reason, I will concentrate my remarks on Canada's response and welcoming of refugees.

Every year, millions of people are forced to leave their homes due to conflict, violence, human rights violations, persecutions, disasters and the impacts of climate change. The number of forcibly displaced persons has reached unprecedented heights in 2024. It is now upwards of 122 million people, double what it was a decade ago. Given this unprecedented need for protection, last week Canada made the troubling decision to slash its immigration levels. This included reductions in the number of government-assisted refugees, privately sponsored refugees and special emergency measures.

Shockingly, the number for protected persons and their dependents abroad was cut by 31%, from 29,000 to 20,000. With a current backlog in this category of over 100,000 active applications, the 2025 numbers are signalling that only one out of every five refugees and family members will get permanent status and be able to move on with their lives. Furthermore, the levels for government-assisted refugees will drop from 23,000 to roughly 15,000. The level for privately sponsored refugees will be reduced by 5,000.

Refugees being resettled from overseas often wait more than three years for their application to come to Canada to be processed. These cuts will mean that refugees will be forced to wait in situations where their lives are at risk on a daily basis. The federal government has framed these cuts in the context of a changing economy. However, Canada has not been immune to a global trend of rising anti-immigrant sentiment and rhetoric that dehumanizes vulnerable migrants. It has been particularly troubling to see the way that refugee claimants have been politicized and incorrectly labelled as a crisis within our country.

We know that Canada has a remarkable capacity to resettle and welcome refugees, and ensuring that immigration policies are not overtaken by xenophobic discourses is crucial to ensuring that the federal government continues to plan for adequate levels of humanitarian immigration.

I would like to take a moment to highlight concerns that the CCR has included in our call for equity in response to crises.

Canadians expect the government to show leadership in providing immigration pathways to people affected by major catastrophes. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is currently developing a crisis response framework. This framework must be developed with a consciousness of the long-standing neglect of crises on the African continent.

Canada has demonstrated it has the capacity to welcome those displaced from conflict through the measures adopted in response to the situations in Ukraine and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, crises such as the one unfolding in Ethiopia's Tigray region in recent years, for example, have not been met with any special measures. Despite the scale of the crisis currently unfolding in Sudan, media and political attention has been limited and the emergency response has been a fraction of what has been made available in other situations.

Canada's history with colonialism and the effects of systemic racism are reinforced through immigration systems in multiple ways, and these further exacerbate existing marginalization. The concern for equity and transparency must be at the heart of Canada's crisis response.

I will now conclude by speaking briefly to the safe third country agreement between Canada and the U.S., which was expanded—