OTTAWA: A former Canadian foreign minister wants money seized from despots to be used to help refugees — a proposal being pitched Thursday to UN ambassadors and international organizations in New York.

The recommendation of the World Refugee Council is one of several in a 126-page report “A Call to Action: Transforming the Global Refugee System.”

The group, led by former top Canadian diplomat Lloyd Axworthy, was formed in 2017 at the height of the global refugee crisis to come up with fresh ideas to try to deal with record-setting migration.

There are currently an estimated 68.5 million people driven from their homes by war, famine and disaster, according to the report’s authors.

“So many people are on the move, and the financial system of supporting and protecting refugees is under real risk,” Axworthy told media.

“We need to start to go after the bad guys,” he said by telephone during a stopover en route to New York.

Seizing their ill-gotten gains, he said, “would free up new money for refugees, but also challenge the impunity of (dictators) who deprive their citizens of staying in their own homes, in their own communities.”

It would also take financial pressures off host nations, he said.

The report calls for making culprits accountable for “persecuting and displacing their own populations.”

“Oppressive regimes, those responsible for much of the forced migration, are in many cases corrupt, stealing from their treasuries and placing the money and other assets offshore,” it says.

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