Between January 2012 to June 2018, 1,482 refugee claims of stateless persons were made to the Immigration and Refugee Board which represents about 1% of the overall number of refugee claims made during this period of time.36 Born in Gaza, Razam was issued a temporary passport from Jordan where he attended university. He was granted conditional residency in Qatar because of his father’s work history there and visited Qatar annually in order to retain his residency. After graduating from university, Razam began working in Qatar but when visiting relatives in Canada he learned that he had lost his job in Qatar and his work permit would automatically expire without the option to renew it. Facing deportation to Gaza, Razam applied for asylum in Canada and was granted a work permit and access to health care. His asylum claim was rejected by the Refugee Protection Division (RPD), as was his subsequent appeal to the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD). He then applied for judicial review of the RAD decision which was granted. Following his successful judicial review, Razam was granted refugee status based on his fear of persecution in Gaza because of political affiliation, though this process lasted more than two years and involved two appeals and a judicial review. “I have been negatively impacted by rejection of RPD and RAD. I am not that guy who wants to lose time. I have good degree, engineering in Jordan. After I get first rejection, my lawyer told me it [could take] long months and years. I said what can I do? I can’t study here to pursue my career in Canada. I cannot have any rights. It may take long years while I am out of profession”. [Razam] b. Resettled Refugees Resettlement to a third country is a durable solution for refugees who are relocated from an asylum country to a third country. Those resettled to Canada have permanent residency status upon arrival which confers them legal protection and all rights associated with this status.37 Between 2012 and 2017, there were 1,800 stateless individuals granted permanent residency in Canada from the resettled refugee category. This represents approximately 41% of the total number of permanent residency applications granted to stateless individuals during this time. Of the 41%, 81% were Privately Sponsored Refugees, 18% were Government Assisted Refugees, and only 0.2% were accepted within the Blended Sponsorship program. There has been a steady increase in the number of permanent residency applications granted to Privately Sponsored Refugees – from 7% of the total of applications granted in 2012 to 52% in 2017. 36 According to the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Refugee Claims Statistics, 151,860 refugee applications were referred to the IRB between 2013 and September 2018. Data was not available for 2012, because the system was overhauled on December 15, 2012. https://irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/statistics/protection/Pages/RPDStat.aspx. 37 http://www.unhcr.org/resettlement.html. 8