Letters | On refugee question, Canada has much to teach Hong Kong

Last week, very good friends along with their two children flew from Hong Kong to Toronto to begin new lives. They are part of the 43,000 minimum number of refugees that Canada plans to welcome in 2019.

In a model programme, Canadian citizens and organisations can sponsor refugees privately or in partnership with the government. This ensures that refugees are supported and welcomed by communities across Canada.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reported that 68.5 million people have been displaced globally as of 2017, over 16 million in 2017 alone. This is the most pressing humanitarian crisis of our time, yet Hong Kong continues to bury its head in the sand. There are over 14,000 refugees seeking asylum and currently living in Hong Kong, effectively stateless and without certain basic rights.

Hong Kong has one of the worst records for rate of acceptance for refugee claimants – 0.8 per cent acceptance compared with over 40 per cent on average globally. The wait for cases to be reviewed by the government can extend to several years and applicants would then face another wait for the UNHCR to officially recognise them as refugees. The processing of refugees by Hong Kong in addition to the UNHCR is needlessly bureaucratic.