World Refugee Day 2026 – June 20
Above photo: In 1986, the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award was awarded to “the people of Canada”. Here, the Governor General of Canada, Jeanne Sauvé, accepts the award from then-United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Jean-Pierre Hocké. You can read more about this event here.
June 20, 2026 is recognized as World Refugee Day by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and by all who work in the refugee protection and resettlement sector.
Canada and refugee resettlement
Special movements of refugees and regular refugee resettlement programs have been significant elements of Canada’s overall migration program for many decades. There have been large scale movements consisting of Hungarians (1956), Czechoslovaks (1968), Ugandan Asians (1972), Southeast Asians (1975-1980), Kosovars (1999), and Syrians (2015-16) to name but a few.
A research paper prepared for the Library of Parliament in 2020 provides an excellent overview of Canada’s refugee resettlement programs.
You can read more about World Refugee Day on the UNHCR website. The date was established by the United Nations General Assembly on December 4, 2000 (resolution 55/76). It commemorates the courage and strength of refugees around the world.
Some excellent UNHCR resources can be viewed here: https://www.unhcr.org/until-everyone-is-safe
You can read the statement of the new High Commissioner for Refugees on the occasion of World Refugee Day 2026 here.
You can read UNHCR’s 2026 Global Trends Report for an excellent overview of the current global refugee landscape.
The Canadian Immigration Historical Society has a number of articles and posts related to refugee resettlement that can be accessed through our main menu or by following these links:
A collection of our posts related to refugees
Resettlement of southeast Asian refugees
