Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 22nd, 2023

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

It is completely representative of mine.

As I said, you have to go through at least three departments to get authorizations, instead of having a single window. Three departments will have to be involved every time a request is made to do work in Afghanistan. That is probably not the goal we had in mind when we debated this proposal at the Special Committee on Afghanistan or in various democratic forums where this proposal was made.

You say that it will work well and your experience has been good. What makes you think that things are going to go faster this time? Applications for authorization will have to be made to three departments instead of having a single window.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

As I said, we are going to look into how to quickly put in place a fast, efficient and fair process that will strike a good balance—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

As Minister of Foreign Affairs, would you agree to putting a single window in place?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you know I am always happy to work with you and other stakeholders to improve the systems. I am prepared to consider a number of good ideas.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

So that includes the idea of having a single window for organizations.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

I am not the one who is responsible, myself—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

No, but you have an opinion, I imagine, since—

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

I always have a very informed opinion, but you must know that, ordinarily, I work with my colleagues and I want to hear their views as well.

We hear you on the issue of efficiency. We also know that a number of organizations already have expertise or have worked in Afghanistan in the past, and our goal is for them to be able to continue doing so regularly—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

That is the actual idea behind this proposal. Canadian NGOs are familiar with the ground through our involvement in Afghanistan for many years.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

If you recommend it specifically in this study, I will be happy to respond to it.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

We could perhaps look to what was done at the UN Security Council in resolution 2615.

I have gone over my time, I think.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have six seconds.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I have six seconds.

Thank you for being here with us.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Ms. Zahid's French is improving every day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I will request all members of the committee who are asking questions to please allow the minister to answer. Give her the opportunity to answer the question.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes. You can begin.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank the minister and her officials for being here today.

In the minister's introduction, she talked about the laws that need to be changed. The bill has been introduced. Recommendation 11 of the Afghanistan special committee calls for the government to “review the anti-terrorism financing provisions under the Criminal Code and urgently take any legislative steps necessary to ensure those provisions do not unduly restrict legitimate humanitarian action that complies with international humanitarian principles and law.”

Doctors Without Borders has raised a concern. They do not support the changes tabled by the government. They are instead encouraging the government to enact a full humanitarian exemption, as recommended by their committee. They say the idea that someone could be charged with a crime for providing medical care to a patient in a hospital during a conflict is ridiculous and out of step with the international humanitarian law that explicitly prohibits punishing a person for upholding medical ethics:

The legislation proposed by Canada today requires humanitarian organizations to seek permission from the Canadian government before we send medical staff to respond to some humanitarian crises—what happens if they say no? Do we walk away from maternity hospitals or primary health clinics? The Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law clearly state that countries have an obligation to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance and a duty to not criminalize the work performed according to medical ethics, yet that's exactly what this legislation does.

That's a quote from Jason Nickerson, humanitarian representative to Canada, Doctors Without Borders.

My question to the minister is this: Why didn't the government put in the full humanitarian exemption?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

That is the question your colleague Alexis was asking me before, Jenny.

Our goal was to make sure we could balance the questions of having a strong stance and not funding any form of terrorist organization while making sure we support humanitarian aid in Afghanistan.

If you and this committee have good recommendations to make, we will obviously study them, as we did during the Afghanistan study. We want to work with humanitarian organizations because we want this to work. Of course, we value Doctors Without Borders. This is a well-known organization in my home province. We will continue to make sure that we can support them, that they can benefit from Canada's humanitarian aid, and, at the same time, that they can help the very Afghan people who need their support in dire circumstances.

While I am saying this to you, my colleague, the Minister of International Development, is the one who can go into much more detail on this aspect. He will obviously have my full support.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, Minister.

The whole Afghanistan issue is a whole-of-government endeavour. I remember that at the Afghanistan committee, when we asked this question of the Minister of International Development, he said that it wasn't him and that we should go talk to the justice department. Everybody bounced the ball around and said, “Not me,” so here we are.

We have a piece of legislation, and it falls short and is not consistent with the recommendations. I guess the takeaway here, which I think I'm happy to hear in part, is this: Maybe the government is open to amendments to see how we can adjust this, because Doctors Without Borders are clearly saying that this is not going to work. If it's not going to work, then we need to do better. We're already slow to the game, truth be told, and for many people who needed aid and help, Canada was not there, while other countries made it.

I'm going to park it there, but I do want to flag it, and I think that organizations and NGOs also flagged it to say that consultation was not done very well. With all this time that's passed, they also flagged that concern. We'll have more time to get to it when the legislation gets into the committee stage for debate, I am sure.

I want to turn for a minute to the issue around Afghans who have been left behind. There are many who have worked for GAC and there are many who have been supported by GAC, funded by the Canadian government. These are NGOs and particularly organizations that supported women and fought for women's rights and democracy, and they've been left behind. This arbitrary number of 40,000 came from I don't know where.

Will the minister support lifting that arbitrary number so more of the people who participated and worked with Canada can get to safety?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

I'll say a couple things. To finish off the last point, we've been providing help to the Afghan people in the form of $150 million, so it's not as if we didn't do anything. We have done things and we will do more, so that's one point.

On the question of amendments, Jenny, we're always open to see what can be done and we value your work. You can always count on me to have good discussions to improve legislation. I think the fact that the Minister of Justice, the Minister of International Development and the Minister of Public Safety made this announcement together shows how much coordination there has been among the three of them.

On the question of Afghans wanting to come to Canada, I think 40,000 is a big number and an ambitious target, but I think it's important that we achieve that target, and now we're at three-quarters of it. Nearly 30,000 Afghan people have come to Canada, and I think that Canadians have answered in a heartwarming way, as Canadians do, by opening their hearts and their homes to make sure Afghan people could come to Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up, Ms. Kwan. We will proceed to Ms. Rempel Garner for five minutes.

Ms. Rempel Garner, please begin.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, my questions will relate to a letter I copied you on that has subsequently led to an investigation into potentially fraudulent visa facilitation letters.

In Senator McPhedran's recent Federal Court affidavit, she states that an email sent by Mr. George Young, who is the former chief of staff to your former colleague, stated that Mr. Young sent a facilitation letter to Senator McPhedran that was received from “a colleague at GAC”. Do you know who in your department sent that letter to Mr. Young?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

I'm sorry; I'm not privy to that information. Also, as you know, Michelle, this is under investigation, so I'm not able to answer this specific question.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

When you say that you're not privy to this information, has your department made any effort to look into who sent that email to Mr. Young?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

As I mentioned, because it's under investigation, I can't answer your question.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

In the minister's response to me, sent on July 26, he mentioned that IRCC had undertaken an internal investigation into the matter. Did your department undertake an internal investigation as well?