Afghanistan Committee on May 20th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 13 of the House of Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan, created pursuant to the order of the House of December 8, 2021.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021.

I would like to remind all those present in the room to please follow the recommendations from the public health authorities, as well as the directive of the Board of Internal Economy of October 19, 2021, to remain healthy and safe.

Should any technical challenges arise, please advise me, as we may need to suspend for a few minutes to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.

Witnesses should be aware that interpretation is available through the globe icon at the bottom of your screen. Could you please take a moment to select the channel of your choice, either the floor, English or French, so that as members ask questions, time is not taken to fix that issue. I hope we are good with this.

I would like to welcome our witnesses here with us for this panel, and thank you all for coming on short notice.

I see there are four independent witnesses. They will have five minutes each for remarks, and please do respect the time. We are very short timewise because it's Friday, and many of the members have noted that they have constituency work lined up at their door, so we want to make sure that we are able to get the maximum output out of this.

First, we'll have five minutes for each of the witnesses, and then we'll go with one round of six minutes each. Please, members, also respect the time as well.

With us an individuals we have former interpreters with the Canadian Armed Forces, Masood Matin Hotak and Mohammed Zarif Mayar. Here supporting Mr. Hotak and Mr. Mayar is Tara Sawchuk. Thank you for coming.

Also with us today from Landings LLP is Warda Shazadi Meighen, partner, and from the Rainbow Railroad, Dr. Kimahli Powell, executive director.

You have five minutes each, so let me start with the former interpreter, Masood Matin Hotak.

Please go ahead.

Mr. Hotak, are you there?

Can everyone hear me? We're waiting for Mr. Hotak.

Let me move on then. If he's not responding, we will go to Mr. Mohammed Zarif Mayar.

Please go ahead for five minutes.

[Mohammed Zarif Mayar, Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual]

Good afternoon to all of you.

Everybody is aware of the situation and of what's going on right now in Afghanistan. There are a lot of people left behind right now. They are seeking a safe way to get out of there. Day by day, their extraction is being tightened by the Taliban and life is getting very tough for those people, especially those who worked with the coalition forces and NGOs.

I don't know. Hopefully, the government will hear this. The government is aware of the situation right now and what's happening. They know better than everybody else.

I'm in contact with a lot of people. They are calling me and sending me emails of their documents and stuff. They just want to get out of there, but nobody is hearing that right now.

I don't know. The Canadian government did this just for.... Sorry to say this, but was it just for elections? They took 12,000 people out of Afghanistan. Was it just for the elections, or what? What about the rest of the people who have been waiting at least a year now?

The Afghan government collapsed on August 16. There are a lot of interpreters. Their families and their kids are waiting on a list. There's no hope left for them. They just want a way out, and they want somebody to hear them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Mayar, are you done?

[Mohammed Zarif Mayar]

Yes, I'm done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Mayar.

We'll move to Ms. Meighen.

Go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Warda Meighen, Partner, Landings LLP]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, for the invitation to speak with you today on Afghanistan. I am an immigration and refugee law partner at Landings LLP, a law firm in Toronto.

Last July, before the fall of Kabul, I began receiving desperate messages about individuals needing urgent assistance. To respond to this demand, Landings partnered with a Canadian national firm on a pro bono basis. We filed approximately 400 individuals under the special immigration program. In August I began working with a judicial organization to troubleshoot the processing of resettlement for female judges and their family members. I now belong to a task force that meets regularly to discern next steps for these individuals as the situation evolves.

Officials are working extremely hard. There's also no lack of political will in terms of the Canadians and what they want to see happen in Afghanistan, but nine months later issues continue to linger. Afghanistan poses some structural challenges—all refugee situations do—but some solutions are outside of our control. Others are in our control. I make four recommendations to you today centred on factors that are within our control.

Number one, we need a standing interdepartmental cabinet committee that reports to Parliament and that harnesses both institutional memory of what we do in refugee situations and a proactive emergency framework. We have to be prepared before the moment requires it. This committee would be crucial in terms of bringing together all the key decision-makers at a moment's notice. We know that situations in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Ukraine are occurring and that refugee situations are not going to disappear. This standing committee would allow us to respond in a more timely fashion.

Number two is a recommendation to explore more aggressively flexible non-refugee streams to get individuals outside of Afghanistan where refugee options are not feasible. This would include things like study permits, work permits and authorization for emergency travel.

Number three—and I know the committee has heard this before—is widespread prima facie refugee designations for at-risk Afghans. It is crucial that we not waste invaluable time with redundant exercises, but instead have the officers focus on inadmissibility and security. Those are key considerations. We already know that at-risk Afghans are refugees. We don't need a partner organization that has different mandates to tell us that. The fall of Kabul really showed us why we cannot rely primarily on partner organizations for this designation. We know that the government has recently permitted the waiver of UNHCR designation for a number of select Afghans through the private resettlement stream. We need to do this in a more widespread manner.

Finally, we need a more reasoned approach to security with respect to both biometrics and our concerns regarding Criminal Code terrorism provisions. That doesn't presuppose a zero level of risk. No government action is zero risk. We have to manage the risk.

Mr. Chair, I look forward to your questions. Thank you for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Ms. Meighen. That was well under time.

Mr. Powell, please go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Dr. Kimahli Powell, Executive Director, Rainbow Railroad]

Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, thank you for the invitation to speak. My name is Kimahli Powell, and I am the executive director of Rainbow Railroad, an international organization based in Canada and the United States that supports LGBTQI+ people facing persecution based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.

I am pleased to be invited to speak today, given the urgent nature of our work in crisis in Afghanistan as well as other parts of the world and given that this is the last of the committee meetings. I personally went to Ottawa to deliver my remarks only to have it cancelled, so I really appreciate having this opportunity, because this really is a life-and-death situation. I would also like to concur with my colleague Ms. Meighen on her four recommendations.

Rainbow Railroad provides direct support to individuals in need and partners with organizations and human rights defenders worldwide. We facilitate emergency evacuations for individuals facing persecution and violence. To date we have helped nearly 1,200 people resettle in countries all around the world, but that is not enough in terms of the need. This year alone we anticipate 10,000 requests for help, many of them in Afghanistan.

Part of what causes displacement for our communities is that in 70 countries around the world, LGBTQI+ persons are criminalized by laws that criminalize same-sex intimacy. Afghanistan is one of those countries.

On August 13 the government announced “a special program to focus on particularly vulnerable groups that are already welcomed to Canada through existing resettlement streams, including women leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, persecuted religious minorities [and] LGBTI individuals”. After that statement, requests for help from LGBTQI+ Afghans spiked dramatically. Understanding that statement to mean that Canada would evacuate LGBTQI+ persons, over 4,500 Afghans have reached out to us for urgent assistance. Because we are a leader in evacuating this population and have worked with the Canadian government before, many assumed that we would be working with the government to refer individuals for resettlement. That has not happened, despite our demonstrated expertise and international presence.

We worked with OutRight Action International and Human Rights Watch, two partners of the Canadian government, to detail a report describing the persecution that this community faces, including beatings, surveillance, having their identity documents burned, having their families threatened, and being imprisoned over their identities. I went to the region twice and witnessed first-hand the trauma faced by those who managed to flee. We were among the first NGOs to facilitate safe passage out of Afghanistan in a partnership that brought LGBTQI+ Afghans to the United Kingdom. We also facilitated the creation of emergency safe houses in neighbouring countries—countries that, it should be noted, also criminalize same-sex intimacy.

I will put my remarks in short. Too many Afghans remain at risk and need resettlement. LGBTQI+ Afghans need a direct safe way out, and Canada must provide it. Globally we have seen a rise in geopolitical crises. The situation in Ukraine demonstrates that, when needed, Canada has the tools available to help people at risk. A similar program in Ukraine could directly benefit Afghans right now. We actually have a direct referral partnership with the United States that would result in 200 LGBTQI+ Afghans resettling in Canada. As a Canadian organization, we believe there's an opportunity to partner directly with the Canadian government to provide a pathway to safety for these individuals.

It is in that spirit that I want to conclude with two crucial policies that would make an immediate difference in the lives of thousands of LGBTQI+ Afghans.

First, I encourage the committee to urge the Minister of Immigration to use their authority under section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to create a public policy to urgently resettle at least 300 pre-identified LGBTQI+ Afghans as government-assisted refugees. There are at least 300 ready-to-travel Afghans in our queue who are ready and in need of help.

Second, I ask the committee to urge the Government of Canada to make Rainbow Railroad a direct referring partner to allow us to pursue targeted responses for the most vulnerable cases of LGBTQI+ persons of Afghanistan, Ukraine and beyond for resettlement. This was recently asked of the minister in this committee, and that is what I am calling for today. Partner with civil society organizations that have expertise to help Afghans resettle in Canada.

Right now there are too many people waiting. With this committee's support, we could bring more people to Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Powell. You were right on the clock.

We will now have one round of questions, beginning with Mr. Hallan.

Mr. Hallan, please go ahead. You have six minutes.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for your patience in having to wait another week or a few days to come here.

My first question is for Mr. Mayar.

Mr. Mayar, you must have been dealing with a lot of interpreters and their family members even before Kabul fell. Can you give us some information on your experience with the people you were dealing with? How was the communication with IRCC before Kabul fell?

[Mohammed Zarif Mayar]

Regarding your question, I'm still in touch with the people and they are sending me emails. Before Kabul fell, before August 15 and 16, IRCC was working pretty good. They were checking documents and stuff. I was in touch. I was working with a group, an organization called Aman Lara, so I was working very closely with them. There were a lot of people coming and we were trying to get them safe passage to Kabul from Kandahar and Helmand and from other provinces.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

What's different now since Kabul fell? Do you see a difference in communication?

[Mohammed Zarif Mayar]

Yes, there's a big difference right now. Everybody's complaining right now, and they are not even looking at.... They are saying “We are stuck now and we we're not receiving any response from IRCC”. There should be somebody hearing this, and they have to do something for the people. And it's not just about the interpreters: It's their families, their kids, but it's especially the women. Right now, they don't have rights. Everybody can see that.

You guys can see the news. Everybody knows that women are just...the circle is getting tighter for women. Every day, there's a new issue for women.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I agree with you. We've heard a lot of testimony, and the people I've been talking to either are left on reply, auto-reply, or there's been no response from IRCC whatsoever. Have you or has anyone you know been in touch with IRCC to bring your cases forward? If you have, what was communicated?

[Mohammed Zarif Mayar]

People are sending emails and their documents. They have a specific Google form to fill out. After that, you will receive a confirmation email saying that “We got your email and we will reply to you soon”. That's it. But they are not replying.

They are not receiving any emails back. They are still on hold. People are still on hold.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Definitely.

I'm just changing gears here.

Mr. Powell, your organization recently released a statement about those 300 LGBTQ Afghans you spoke about, and your organization is quoted as saying that they're “ready for imminent travel and resettlement in a safer country. But they're stuck and waiting for a way out.”

In one of the recommendations you just made about resettling them, you said that it should come under the government-assisted refugees program. To the best of your knowledge, for any of those applications or any previous to this situation, has any one of them been resettled through the government-assisted program or any other special immigration measures?

[Dr. Kimahli Powell]

No. The individuals I am referring to are still stuck in neighbouring countries. They've managed to make it outside of Afghanistan, but we're imploring the government to allow us to refer them for resettlement.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

What do you see are some of the roadblocks?

[Dr. Kimahli Powell]

It's not clear to us where the commitment to the vulnerable population stream begins and ends. That's what we've been asking for clarity on, and when the cap of that population ends.

In particular, as a population mentioned specifically, I believe that there should be a commitment to track and identify how many of those persons we'll be able to resettle. Now of course that's difficult because of privacy issues, which is why referral is an important part of our ask.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

You have one minute left.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I cede my time to Mr. Ruff.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

First off, my thanks to all the witnesses, especially to the former interpreters. Having spent time—two tours—in Afghanistan, I couldn't have done my job, and none of the Canadian Armed Forces could have done their jobs, without you.

Chair, I have a motion to move, but I do suggest that we push off any discussion of it till after the first round, if you'll commit to that. The motion has now been sent by the clerk to everybody, but I'll read it quickly into the record:

That the Privy Council Office, Global Affairs Canada, and the Canadian Armed Forces and any other government department provide the Special Committee on Afghanistan the already completed or draft after action review reports with respect to the evacuation of Kabul in August of 2021 from the respective departments to the Afghanistan committee for inclusion in the report due back to the House by the 8th of June, 2022.

Thanks, Chair. Will you agree to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Yes, I do agree, Mr. Ruff, and we'll definitely be discussing that at the end.

We will now proceed to the honourable member Mr. El-Khoury for six minutes.

Please, go ahead.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I welcome the witnesses.

We appreciate you joining us.

My first question is for Mr. Powell.

Mr. Powell, in your report, you often bring up the strengthening of the partnership between Rainbow Railroad and the government in Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

Can you tell us about the terms and conditions of this partnership and what you have in mind more specifically to help us improve it?