Statement: World Refugee Day 2022

On June 16, 2022 Senator Omidvar gave a statement for World Refugee Day. Watch her speech:

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I rise today to recognize World Refugee Day. This has never been a day for celebration, least of all this year, because this year marks a new threshold of misery, insecurity, heartbreak and displacement for millions of new people.

In Ukraine alone, over 7 million people have fled the brutal and ruthless invasion by Russia. In Afghanistan, we watched in horror as the Taliban returned, resulting in a mass exodus from the country.

All told, today there are over 100 million people who have been displaced. This is a new high. I know that sometimes numbers are meaningless because we hear so many numbers thrown at us, so let me try and put these numbers into some context for you. One hundred million people is more than the entire populations of the U.K., France or Italy, and more than twice the population of Canada. If you pulled together the world’s largest cities — New Delhi, Mexico City and Beijing — you would still not get to 100 million. By all accounts, this number is only going to climb because of climate change, climate migration and, sadly, more conflict.

I believe we need to come to grips with this new normal, yet tragic, way of life. Although I appreciate that Canada has worked hard to bring in Afghans and Ukrainians, we know that our response could be better, faster and more humane. We cannot be reinventing the wheel whenever a new crisis arrives, because there will always be a new crisis.

Canada needs to be better prepared, learn its lessons from the past as well as its successes — such as our response to Syrian refugees — and permanently realign the machinery of government at IRCC, Global Affairs Canada and other departments to create a rapid response mechanism which will make us more nimble, responsive and efficient. We owe it not just to the people who have lost their homes, but we also owe it to ourselves. Thank you.