Afghanistan Committee on April 25th, 2022

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I appreciate that. What I heard you say, and thank you for flagging it for me, is that I'd missed a group of people who are out of country, who've fled Afghanistan but have already been approved.

I'm just thinking about the folks at home who are following this or some of the witnesses who've presented to us who might be watching today, reading your testimony or watching your testimony. If you had to identify or summarize, what are the key bottlenecks for that remaining number of people to reach our target, the 40,000-person target?

I'm approximating between the folks who have been approved inside Afghanistan, the folks who have arrived and others who've been approved who are outside Afghanistan. What would you say are the key bottlenecks in terms of bringing those people here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister, please respond very briefly.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Sure.

We need to get them into the program. We need to work with the groups that are going to refer them into the program. Our referral partners have been great. Some are a little more quick than others, and that's great. However, regarding the bottleneck to getting people here, the ones outside the country who are approved, I have faith they'll be able to be landing in large numbers in the months ahead.

The base bottleneck is that it's really tough to move people through Afghanistan. The documentation required to get them into a third country where we can complete the process and have them travel on to Canada is the big problem that needs to be solved for those who are still in Afghanistan.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Baker.

Now we'll move to round number three. We'll start with the Honourable Michael Chong for five minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for appearing in front of our committee. I will begin by asking about the special immigration program for Afghans who have a significant or enduring connection to Canada, which was announced on July 23 of last year. How many applications have been received under this program?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I don't mean to not be straightforward, but what you mean by “applications” changes the answer to the question.

With respect to the special immigration measures, someone could fill out a web form indicating interest. Then they would get referred into the program by our referral partners and we'd issue an invitation to apply. At that stage, they'd officially come to apply.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

How many invitations to apply have been sent out?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I don't have the precise number. Does one of our officials have that? I can provide it after if you'd like. That would be fine.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes.

[Catrina Tapley]

I have it, Minister, if you'd like it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Hold on. It's one person at a time.

Ms. Tapley.

[Catrina Tapley]

Minister, we have 14,818 applications, and that's by individual.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you.

Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

How many of those 14,818 applications have been approved?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If my officials have the number with them, I'd be happy to provide that.

[Catrina Tapley]

Of those applications, we have approved more than 10,000. Of those, 5,644 are here in Canada and resettled. We have another almost 5,000 in our landing inventory, which means they've been approved. The rest of those applications are at various stages of review and processing.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you.

How many of those roughly 5,500 individuals here in Canada had left Afghanistan by the end of August of last summer?

[Catrina Tapley]

With the exodus from Kabul, we were able to resettle about 3,700 initially. I'll have to double-check whether all of them fall into that same category of special immigration measures that we put in place, but the majority of those would fall into that category.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you for that.

I believe a significant number of the 3,700 were not Afghans but were other nationals, but I think we can clarify that later. If you had that more detailed information, it would be helpful.

[Catrina Tapley]

They were all Afghans, Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

All 3,700 were Afghans; is that correct?

[Catrina Tapley]

That's correct.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate that.

Minister, why was Canada so much slower? In your opening remarks, you mentioned measuring Canada's per capita contributions. Why did we punch below our weight on a per capita basis in the days leading up to the end of last August? When I say we punched below our weight, as the deputy minister indicated, Canada evacuated some 3,700 people from Kabul by the end of last August. The United Kingdom has approximately double Canada's population, and under Operation Pitting, which was their analog to Operation Aegis, they evacuated 13,000 people from Afghanistan by the end of last August.

Why is it that on a per capita basis, we did about half of what they were able to do when it came to evacuating Afghans with an enduring and significant tie to Canada?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

One of the things that are important to understand is that we didn't have a significant logistical presence on the ground that would allow us to move large numbers of people to the same degree that certainly the United States had. I would point out that we've now caught up to or even, in some instances, surpassed a lot of the folks who may have evacuated larger numbers in those few key days or weeks, in terms of the number of people who are already resettled. The comparison with the U.K. is interesting, because some people are there but their status is not yet finalized, but I have full faith that we're going to surpass those numbers soon.

Your question about those few key days really has to do with the fact that we hadn't had a military presence since 2014, and even our diplomatic presence wasn't of such a nature that would allow us to move thousands and thousands of people in a very short period of time. It required a lot of collaboration with others.