Evidence of meeting #9 for Afghanistan in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was families.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ghulam Faizi  Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Hameed Khan  Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Ahmad Shoaib  Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Safiullah Mohammad Zahed  Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Ahmad Shah Sayed  Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual
Umashanie Reddy  National Director, Government-Assisted Refugee Resettlement and the National Afghan Refugee Resettlement Programs, Calgary Catholic Immigration Society

4:35 p.m.

Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual

Ghulam Faizi

Can I say one thing?

Can Mr. O'Toole send or email the question he was trying to ask us? That was very important, I believe.

Thank you.

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Sure.

Mr. O'Toole, I really apologize because this is the way we set it up so we give time to every member.

The meeting is suspended for two minutes.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Mr. Faizi, my office will reach out as well.

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

The meeting is suspended.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you very much.

We will now continue with our second panel today.

On behalf of the committee members, I would like to welcome our witnesses, former interpreters for the Canadian Armed Forces, Mr. Safiullah Mohammad Zahed and Mr. Ahmad Shah Sayed. From the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, we welcome Ms. Reddy, the manager of their Afghan operations secretariat.

Welcome to all of you. You have five minutes to speak.

Please make sure that you have your timer. Also, if you are only English speaking, on the bottom right-hand side of your screen there is a language selection for either English or French because we want to make sure that when a French speaker speaks, you are able to pick it up in English. Your button should be on English or French.

I am asking the witnesses if they have that.

4:40 p.m.

Safiullah Mohammad Zahed Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual

Yes, I have it.

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Mr. Sayed, do you have it?

April 11th, 2022 / 4:40 p.m.

Ahmad Shah Sayed Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual

I have it now.

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Good. Thank you.

Ms. Reddy, do you have it?

4:40 p.m.

Umashanie Reddy National Director, Government-Assisted Refugee Resettlement and the National Afghan Refugee Resettlement Programs, Calgary Catholic Immigration Society

Thank you. I have it.

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Now everything is working well. We can now start with Mr. Zahed for five minutes.

Please go ahead.

4:40 p.m.

Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual

Safiullah Mohammad Zahed

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and all members of the Afghan committee. My name is Safiullah Mohammad Zahed. I worked as an interpreter for the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan, in Kandahar, from 2006 to May of 2012. I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to speak here about the situation in Afghanistan for our families.

When the unthinkable happened in Afghanistan, it was the worst nightmare for all of us. Everyone was anxious about their family members' lives. I personally had no idea what to do or what door to knock on for help. I could not stop thinking about what could happen to my family as I had already lost my best friend, my dad, in 2013 due to being employed by the Canadian Armed Forces. He was brutally shot in the heart. I was and still am scared that the same could happen to whatever family I have left. Since then I have been moving them around Afghanistan.

I have four brothers, and two of them went missing when the Taliban took over. One made it to Turkey. He was smuggled and almost died on the way. The other one is still missing, and we have no idea where he is. Their children and the rest of their families and my family are on the move from one house to another, from one city to another, from one province to another. It has been seven months, and we have moved to four or five provinces. It's been six or seven weeks since I have spoken to them. Because of the media and because of all of the contacts we cannot get in touch with them. That's not just my story. It's the same for most of the interpreters. Personally I know two people here, two of my best friends. One lost his sister, who was killed in school. I hadn't talked to the other one for a long time, but the other day I called him. As a friend, I asked him how he was doing, and he started crying. I said, “Why are you crying?” and he said, “I have lost 11 family members since the Taliban took over.” I said, “Why don't you come forward and talk to the government and email IRCC?” He said, “What's the benefit? You have been having meetings every week with IRCC. Have you gained anything? Seventy-five per cent of people's files have not been seen by IRCC members.”

After we talked to the government every Monday for three or four weeks, finally the government started a pathway for us. It opened last December. It's been five months since we submitted all of our applications. The big problem we have right now is that the initial application was 33 pages long—I have all of the form numbers—for every family member. I have four brothers and in total 13 to 15 members. For each one there are 33 pages of applications we handed to the members. Then we got more emails. We have been contacted by three different offices asking for similar information, the same kinds of forms.

Last week, most of our friends got emails from three different offices asking for 16 more forms. I don't know how or who we cry to. In one way we're running from the Taliban government and on the other hand we have our government which is making more obstacles, which is making it harder for us to fill in or complete our applications. If they cannot give us a G number or a UCI number in five months or complete our applications because we have so much more to come, how can they bring our families? This was supposed to be an emergency evacuation, but instead it's being treated as a family sponsorship program in which we have to pay for everything. We have to file hundreds of forms. I think they're just making excuses.

There will be a problem in a form where they're asking about my dad's history from 40 years ago and about what he was doing when the Russians where there. When the Russians were in my country, they killed two of my uncles and two of my aunts. They bombed them like animals—

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Mr. Zahed, your time is up. I'm sorry to interrupt. We're way over time. I will come back to you.

Thank you.

4:45 p.m.

Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Mr. Sayed, we come to you now for five minutes. Please go ahead.

4:45 p.m.

Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual

Ahmad Shah Sayed

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the honourable members of the committee on the special situation in Afghanistan. Thanks for the opportunity given to me, my friends and my colleagues to bring forward to the committee our concerns and problems. I have two or three different conversations.

The first thing is that most of the points were covered by my friends, but I'm calling on the government, I'm calling on the federal government, I'm calling on the honourable Justin Trudeau and the honourable Minister of Immigration Sean Fraser to find safe passage for our families to leave Afghanistan. The government has to work with its international allies. It has to find safe passage for our families to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. We have been going through this problem for more than seven months and we have problems with IRCC; we have problems with the immigration office; we have problems with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and we have problems especially with the federal government. I call on the government, the IRCC and Sean Fraser, the honourable minister. We are tired of your wrong politics. We are tired of these politics in which our innocent families are being sacrificed. This needs to be a political stick, and the government and the honourable Minister of Immigration need to lead us with the right politics and in the right direction. This is not the right direction we are facing right now. They have to find us safe pathways. They have to put pressure on the Taliban, work with Qataris and put more resources in the country and the region to find safe pathways for our families' evacuation from Afghanistan.

The second thing is this. I again call on the honourable Minister of Immigration to accept, to admit, that he failed in this process. If he doesn't admit that he has failed in this process and this policy, how long will we have to wait to see our families? How long should we expect to have to wait to have the process? When will we witness one single family being en route to Canada? Why is this not happening? What exactly is going on that we don't know about? Where is the sensitive information? We are asking the Minister of Immigration to please be faithful to us, be truthful with us, be respectful with us, to treat us without fear and treat us with respect. We are veterans. We worked with the Canadian Forces shoulder to shoulder. We worked alongside the Canadian Forces. We were there with the Canadian missions, so don't leave us hopeless right now.

Also, I am calling on committee members to please ask the government and the IRCC why they are delaying this process. Why are the packages not getting approved even when there is not enough information? If there are missing documents, why are they not contacting the principal applicants and sending them information and asking for extra information? Why are they not getting back to our friends?

We went through hunger strikes, two hunger strikes, right in front of Parliament. Nobody came to us except for Mr. Holland and Jenny Kwan. We don't deserve to stay in that cold weather and rain and to raise our voices and have nobody pay attention to us. That is unfair.

I'm asking the government and the members of this committee to please talk with the IRCC office, talk with the IRCC representatives, ask them, question them in the government House about why they are delaying this process. What exactly is going on with this government? What exactly is going on with this government that it has the power and it does nothing? Why is it not finding another safe passage for our families? Why is it not bringing our families from Pakistan, who have been waiting more than three months? Why is it not assigning file numbers when we sent the packages more than six months ago? It has to accept and the honourable minister needs to accept and admit that he failed in this policy, that he dropped the ball, so we have to find a solution. We have to find the safe pathways and we have to work together. I'm calling on the honourable committee members here to work together for us and to find the safe pathways for our families and to pick up the ball where they dropped it.

This is all politics, and we are tired of the two-faced politics of this government. We are tired of the politics of the honourable Minister of Immigration. They don't require any single document from us. They're asking for extra documents. They're asking for extra emails. They're asking for extra information. They're sending email after email. They are bombarding us with paperwork.

Why are you not worried about our families' lives? You are worried about the paperwork. Move our families to the safe zone, and then do the paperwork.

Thank you.

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you very much, Mr. Sayed.

On behalf of all members, I do appreciate your time here and your service to Canada. Today you are asking for safe passage, and I'm sure the members will be able to come back to you on this.

Mr. Zahed and Mr. Sayed, thank you again on behalf of the members.

Now we're going to Ms. Reddy for five minutes.

Please go ahead.

4:50 p.m.

National Director, Government-Assisted Refugee Resettlement and the National Afghan Refugee Resettlement Programs, Calgary Catholic Immigration Society

Umashanie Reddy

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Honourable members of Parliament, good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me. I am speaking to you from the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, home of the Treaty 7 first nations and home to the people of Métis Region 3.

Events that happened in Afghanistan in August were unbeknownst to all of us. This segment of humanity was displaced beyond all expectations from their national way of living and forced to seek refuge in safer havens. In August of 2021, Canada evacuated 3,700 Afghan nationals, brought them into the Toronto port of entry and housed them in four hotels.

We had literally eight days as a sector to organize ourselves to provide settlement, resettlement and implementation support to our newfound families. We were very strategic. Even though we had six to eight days, we wanted to have a fully fledged strategic governance structure that spoke notably to roles and responsibilities: one that was nationally coordinated and locally implemented, one that was equitable, one that was socially just and one that every single RAP service provider could take part in.

We wanted to engage all resettlement sector partners so that they all had an equal and equitable voice at the table. We wanted to assign roles and responsibilities so that everybody became part of this national collaboration. Communication between IRCC and the sector was seamless during this time. Once we designed the fully fledged governance structure, we actioned it into a national steering committee meeting. We met every Wednesday to ensure that we were all on board and all supportive of our new Afghan families that arrived in Canada.

Leadership was at its absolute ultimate: It was transformative. It was distributive leadership. Everybody took a stance. It went beyond the single-agency leadership domain into a fully fledged and collaborative collective impact. The sector undertook a trauma-informed practice because we had to address trauma-informed individuals who went through atrocities that you and I would never be able to understand. We also had to ensure that our staff were actually available and able to support these individuals. We wanted to ensure that they had the correct health and wellness to also support the individuals.

Today, we have received 10,050 Afghan nationals who have arrived. What have we done in seven and a half months? Corporate Canada came to the forefront to support the Afghan nationals. They attended our national steering committee meetings. Canadian Tire, Airbnb, Amazon.com and Air Canada came to provide supports in the way of employment, donations and any possible goodwill to the newfound families. Also, Veterans Affairs Canada sent us a list of 3,000 interpreters and their families who wanted to support the Afghan families.

In line with the UNHCR, we developed a needs assessment tool to ensure we learned as much as we could about the Afghan population so that we could better serve them: to not pre-empt what they needed, but to ask them what they needed. We wanted to start at that point and to meet them halfway, not start from point zero.

Airbnb came in and offered us $500,000 to ensure we had temporary accommodations in place ready for the Afghan families. Uber provided us $100,000 to ensure we had transportation for the Afghan families.

We created a generic email account. To date, the centre has received 34,000 emails from individuals who wanted to support the families. We also created an Aghan resettlement website.

Of course, there were challenges: COVID-19. We had received large-scale movements in the years before; however, Afghan nationals were evacuated during COVID-19, and we had to quarantine them in hotels. We had to ensure that their health was checked and that COVID vaccinations were provided to them.

Housing was another challenge they encountered. Of course, the RAP income support was not sufficient to provide for their housing needs. So what we did was to engage 345 housing partners across Canada in a National Event on Refugee Housing and Partnerships—

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

I'm sorry to interrupt. Thank you very much, Madam Reddy.

4:55 p.m.

National Director, Government-Assisted Refugee Resettlement and the National Afghan Refugee Resettlement Programs, Calgary Catholic Immigration Society

Umashanie Reddy

Thank you very much.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

We appreciate your service to humanity.

Now we can start with the rounds of questioning.

Honourable member O'Toole, I am sorry that I got carried away emotionally a bit in the first round, so now you have your six minutes. Please go ahead.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You can always give me some bonus time at your discretion too. That would be great.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

First off, Ms. Reddy, thank you to you and your countless volunteers. The response from organized groups, faith organizations and military and veterans' families—I've heard from many of them—is astounding, so thank you.

I have a quick question for Mr. Sayed and Mr. Zahed.

Thank you for your service.

We are sorry that we are in this process. How long was the process between your applying to your getting on the ground? Could I have just a short answer from you both, please, and from Mr. Zahed first?

4:55 p.m.

Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual

Safiullah Mohammad Zahed

For me, it was three months in 2012.