In 2014 about 51.2 million individuals were forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations.
The UN agency says some 51.2 million individuals were forcibly displaced in 2014 as a refugee in the world .Only, 866,000 sought asylums last year with the 44 countries who report claims to the UN.
This shocking 45% increase from 2013 and at the same time the highest record level since 1992 is due to the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Canada, historically is a country known for welcoming refugees with open arms, and is expected to step up and do its part.
According to the UN agency, Canada’s intake of refugees has dropped from the first 5 countries in the United Nation list to 15th in the last five years. Last year, Canada did only accept 13,500 refugees.
For example even Sweden, which only has a quarter of Canada’s population, admitted 75,100 refugees last year.
In fact Canada’s intake in 2014 was one-third more than 2012’s 10,400 refugees. And it has settled 20,000 Iraqi refugees since 2009. Still, the immediate need is great, and Canada could and should — do more.
Canada’s new immigration policies can potentially be the result of reforms of law and asylum policies and the introduction of visa requirements for some nationalities. In short, Canada has been making it tougher for refugee claimants to make it to our shores since 2011.
Meanwhile, the majority of those who do make it aren’t even taken in by Ottawa. They are privately sponsored, notes Nadia Abu-Zahra, a University of Ottawa professor of global studies who specializes in refugee issues. In other words, it is individual Canadians who are being most generous, not our government.
In fact current focus on economic class immigrants. That policy shift has not only unfavourably affected the number of refugees Canada takes in, but has pushed aside immigrants who used to come in under the family reunification class.
Ottawa is, in short, focusing more on the economic benefits of immigration than on humanitarian need.
