Citizenship and Immigration Canada
www.cic.gc.ca
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Resettlement from outside Canada: Convention Refugees Abroad Class
You are a Convention Refugee if you are outside your home country, or the country where you normally live, and can’t return to that country because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on:
- race
- religion
- political opinion
- nationality or
- membership in a particular social group, such as women or people with a different sexual orientation.
Referrals from UNHCR and other organizations
Canada relies on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), other referral organizations and private sponsorship groups to identify and refer Convention Refugees Abroad to be resettled in Canada.
The UNHCR identifies refugees to be resettled in Canada when there is no other solution or no effective protection available to them.
A Canadian visa officer then decides whether the person identified meets the requirements of Canada’s Refugee and Humanitarian Resettlement Program, and if the person will be admitted to Canada.
Learn about:
Canada-Quebec Accord
Under the Canada-Quebec Accord, the Quebec government selects the refugees who settle in Quebec. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is responsible for determining whether a person selected by Quebec qualifies as a refugee based on Canadian immigration regulations.
For more information on Quebec’s refugee selection program and the process that Quebec uses to select refugees, go to the Related Links section at the bottom of this page.
