Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, members, for the opportunity to address this committee on the government's effort to resettle Afghan refugees.
Thank you for inviting me today.
As you know, following the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan last summer, the government initially committed to resettle 20,000 vulnerable Afghan refugees. That commitment has now been increased to bringing at least 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada as part of this effort.
I'm proud to say that we've welcomed over 11,500 Afghans to Canada, with more flights arriving every week.
Just last Thursday, over 330 Afghans who supported Canada's mission in Afghanistan arrived on a chartered flight from Pakistan to Calgary, with two more charters arriving this week with both privately sponsored and government-assisted refugees on board.
There are several distinct and specialized pathways that we implemented as part of this effort to resettle Afghan refugees. This, coupled with the unprecedented logistical obstacles and the dire situation on the ground in Afghanistan, has created very serious challenges to the program. That's why I'm pleased to be here today to answer any questions you may have.
I did agree to stay for the full two hours. I am supposed to be somewhere at 8:30, but perhaps we can stretch that. I'll leave it to you, Mr. Chair, to determine the logistics of the committee, given the motion that you've just adopted as well, but I am pleased to be here so that I can provide answers to some of your questions and whatever additional information and clarity I am able to.
I sincerely look forward to receiving recommendations from this committee's report to see what we can continue to do to support vulnerable Afghans.
Our programs include the special immigration measures for Afghan nationals, who, like those that arrived in Calgary last week, directly assisted the Government of Canada as part of our mission in Afghanistan.
As part of our commitment to resettle over 40,000 Afghan refugees, we plan to welcome approximately 18,000 individuals and families who had a direct, significant and enduring relationship with Canada through their work with the Department of National Defence or Global Affairs Canada.
We've implemented a special stream that is aimed at resettling 5,000 extended family members of interpreters who were already living in Canada and who were not included when family members were resettled in 2009 and 2012. We also implemented a separate humanitarian stream to welcome even more Afghan refugees based on certain particular vulnerabilities, including women leaders, LGBTQ2+ individuals, human rights defenders, journalists and members of religious and ethnic minorities.
As with our standard refugee programs, the humanitarian stream works through a referral system. Individuals don't apply directly to the program. Instead, individuals are referred by designated partners that are trained and experienced in assessing vulnerability and operating in situations of mass displacement and humanitarian hardship. Referral partners include organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Front Line Defenders, ProtectDefenders.eu and Canadian private sponsors.
In light of the current situation in Afghanistan, and as an exceptional measure, we're waiving the requirement for refugee status determination for some private sponsorship applications, which broadens sponsor access to the program.
This is one of the ways we're continuing to work with the thousands of Canadians across the country who want to help any way they can.
In addition to all these special pathways, we're going to work with partners to use the economic mobility pathways pilot as well. This is an innovative program designed to help skilled refugees resettle in Canada, so we can welcome even more Afghan refugees.
By using our network of migration offices and implementing flexible approaches where possible, we've streamlined applications from Afghanistan to process cases as quickly as we can.
In every scenario, we're identifying and implementing creative solutions wherever we can find them. This includes measures like waiving certain standard requirements, expanding eligibility for certain prearrival supports, providing dedicated communication channels, delivering new e-application intake tools, undertaking biometrics collection trips and mobilizing significant resources.
By far, the biggest challenge is that many of the individuals selected under this special immigration program are still in Afghanistan. I need not remind members of this committee, amongst any parliamentarians, that this is territory that has been seized by the Taliban—a terrorist entity under Canadian law—and the Government of Canada has no military or diplomatic presence there. Our usual international partners are not able to provide the typical logistical support or arrange for travel in the ways you might see through a centrally managed effort that has a large presence with the UNHCR, for example.
Millions of Afghan refugees have fled Afghanistan. If we want to bring any 40,000 Afghan refugees who are already in third countries, I don't question that we would be able to deliver on that commitment more quickly. However—and this is an important element of this effort to me—we made a commitment to certain individuals and their families on the basis of their work with Canada. We don't plan to waver on that commitment, even if it means doing the harder thing, which is to continue to pursue all avenues to get them to Canada, despite the fact that they might still be in Afghanistan.
We're doing everything we can and innovating new ways to help Afghans inside and outside Afghanistan, including working with NGOs and engaging with other governments.
We're going to continue working to secure safe passage for those in Afghanistan, so they can travel to a safe third country, which allows us to complete application processing and facilitate onward travel to Canada.
We're working with partners in the region—whether they're our allies, other state partners, international organizations or non-profit organizations—so that we can identify a path forward. For example, we've been partnering with the veterans-led organization Aman Lara, which is helping evacuate individuals from conflict zones. They've assisted in the safe passage of now thousands of Afghan refugees who were destined for Canada.
The biggest hurdle from this mission, from my point of view and since I've been appointed as the minister responsible for this portfolio, is not the processing capacity of the Government of Canada, but the situational and environmental factors on the ground in Afghanistan. We share a lot of these challenges with other like-minded partners. We're not alone in the obstacles that we're facing.
It's important to put Canada's commitment to Afghan refugees in a global context. Unlike other partner countries in the region and some of our allies, we didn't have an established military presence in the months and years prior to the fall of Kabul, yet we have one of the largest commitments and efforts dedicated to resettling Afghan refugees. On a per capita basis, our goal of bringing at least 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada places us among the top countries in the world when it comes to resettlement. In terms of raw numbers, we would be second only to the United States, which benefited from having a large military presence with logistical support that allowed them to evacuate a significantly larger number of people than all other nations. However, on a per capita basis, there's no question that ours is the most substantial refugee resettlement effort from Afghanistan globally right now.
I look at some of the other commitments that our partners have made. Again, in terms of raw numbers, a commitment of 40,000 is larger than that of the United Kingdom or Australia. It's the same commitment that's being pursued by the entirety of the European Union, more or less, which has 10 times our population.
We have a long-standing and proud tradition of welcoming the world's most vulnerable, and we'll continue working hard to bring people to Canada as quickly and safely as possible.
Since the fall of Kabul, IRCC has received over a million communications from those who have expressed interest in coming to Canada. Evidently, it's a far larger number than we could manage to bring to our country. Canada's going to continue to work with partners to provide crucial humanitarian aid to those who need it the most in order to support the people of Afghanistan in the years to come. We will be providing a new home to more than 40,000 Afghan refugees.
I know this is going to be incredibly hard news for a lot of vulnerable people, but the really hard reality is that not everyone who has expressed interest in coming to Canada is going to be part of this program. When you're dealing with more than a million requests—not all of them are formal applications—it's a really difficult thing, when you're trying to understand how we can do more to support vulnerable people but know that there are vulnerable people who will not be part of the effort. In the global context, again, with a hundred million displaced persons around the world, it's not feasible to resettle everyone who's vulnerable globally. This makes it a particularly challenging exercise.
As we've said, our priority is those who have directly supported Canada's mission in Afghanistan, families of interpreters and other Afghans from groups who are being targeted by the Taliban. I know that many have been waiting for a response from the Government of Canada regarding their eligibility under the special immigration measures stream. Over the next few weeks, we'll be communicating directly with hundreds of additional individuals who are newly eligible for the program, as well as many of those who are not going to be eligible at this time.
And let me be clear—we've been working hard to bring those who are already approved under this program to Canada, and more flights are arriving across the country every week. This is in spite of the severe operational challenges we and our allies are facing on the ground.
We also need to make sure that we support Afghans upon their arrival in Canada. Making this broad-reaching initiative a success will continue to require collaboration across the government, as well as with provinces and territories, resettlement and settlement services providers, private sponsors, francophone minority communities, other stakeholders and all Canadians.
We also established the national Afghan steering committee last August, which is led by Fariborz Birjandian. He's a former refugee and the executive director of one of the largest and most successful settlement agencies in Canada: the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society.
The steering committee is coordinating volunteers and donations on behalf of all resettlement assistance providers across Canada that are welcoming Afghan refugees into their communities.
It's sometimes easy to get lost in the numbers and forget the human element of this story.
More than 11,500 Afghans have already arrived in Canada. That's over 11,500 lives that have—
