Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members. I'm very pleased to be here today for an important topic for my organization, the UN refugee agency, which is the global compact on refugees. I had the pleasure to be here not so long ago when I gave an overview of the situation of refugees globally.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's actually a very important point. In addition to funding to be able to stabilize the population that returns, which goes through all the elements that I have mentioned, health, education, etc., you rightly point out the fact that we need reconciliation. We need transitional justice.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can only speak for UNHCR. We have not been affected by the withdrawal of funding by the United States. The United States is still providing $1.4 billion to UNHCR this year.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With regard to private sponsors, we are trying to see to what extent we can engage, for example, the disability movement or the health charities to resettle refugees through private sponsorship, not based on family links, but really on those affinities of sharing a common characteristic with the refugees, so based on the vulnerability rather than a family link.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The return is always based on the voluntariness and the choice by the refugees themselves. What is important is that refugees are given the option and the information to assess for themselves whether it's safe to return and whether they will be able to return in a dignified manner.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In all our operations, through our partners, whether government or non-government organizations, and also with our own UNHCR staff, we hold those focus group consultations. We call them participatory assessments. Of course, it's extremely difficult for those women to come with a story of having been sexually abused.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. Our priority is really the government-assisted refugees or what we call here the GARs. They are based on a selection by UNHCR within this 1.4 million.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the case of the Yazidis in the north of Iraq, just to be very specific, the overwhelming majority of them didn't want to leave Iraq because there was a relative, whether a child or a male adult—brother, husband, father—who was still in captivity. It was extremely difficult for them to make the choice of moving across an international border because they were afraid of never being able to be reunited.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have individual conversations and focus groups with all of them on a daily basis.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That was an issue, as I just mentioned. A number of Yazidi women and girls rejected the offer to be resettled.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's not us. We are not responsible for the secondary movement of family members.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It was made clear to the person that we could not guarantee when a family member would resurface or whether this person would be able to come. As you know, there is screening on security concerns as well.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The private sponsorship model of Canada is quite unique.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's a very robust system in Canada. There is a close co-operation between the UNHCR, IOM, IRCC, and the visa officer, to select the most vulnerable and bring them here, where they get a good program to support their socio-economic integration into Canada.