Honourable senators, I rise today to mark World Refugee Day on June 20. Life, as we know it, has never been easy for refugees, but I know that we must all appreciate how much harder it has become for them with the deepening of the COVID crisis. Borders have locked down, safe passage is hard to find, predators lurk around every corner and doors to entry are being closed rapidly. Refugees have always been last: last in terms of their rights, last in terms of access, last perhaps in our minds and definitely last in terms of health care in these complex times.

Just as one example, we’ve all heard about Cox’s Bazar. People are already living there in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh hosts 900,000 Rohingya refugees, with waves of the pandemic sweeping over them. And yet, as I read in The New Humanitarian last week, not a single vaccine has been administered by the government at this point.

And Bangladesh is not the only refugee-hosting country relying on COVAX for its supply. Other major refugee-hosting countries such as Uganda, Pakistan, Colombia and Lebanon host some of the largest refugee populations of the world. All have received just a fraction of the doses allotted to them through COVAX. It is no surprise that of the 157 hosting countries, only 54 — roughly one third — have vaccinated refugees.

In addition, even where vaccines are available, refugees face insurmountable barriers to getting them. There are issues of cost and language, there are information barriers, and there are issues of providing identification, to name just a few. Getting access to vaccines in conflict zones creates another set of challenges, and the United Nations humanitarian buffer vaccination zone has not launched yet.

Let’s also be clear: The main reason these countries are at the end of the line is a woeful lack of supply for developing countries. Most of the vaccinations, as we know, are going to well-off countries such as Canada, the U.S. and in Europe. As welcome as the announcements of the vaccine donations from the G7 summit are, they would need to be accompanied by a timeline and with a special mention of host countries which house large refugee populations.

I and a number of other senators, along with civil society, governments and concerned citizens around the world, have called for vaccine patents to be temporarily waived so that more supply of vaccines can be produced and shared around the world. To this proposal, we wrote a letter to the Prime Minister. We have only heard nice words and no real action.

Today, coincidentally, June 17, Canada is acting as the host of the International Donors’ Conference for the more than 5.7 million Venezuelan refugees who remain largely in the region. They need shelter, food and vaccinations.