Afghanistan Committee on April 11th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We have a quorum. Welcome, everybody, from beautiful British Columbia. It's particularly nice to see that the Honourable Erin O'Toole is with us on this committee.

Welcome, Mr. O'Toole.

I am going to call this meeting to order now. Welcome to meeting number nine of the House of Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan, pursuant to the House order 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.

The witnesses should also be aware that translation is available through the globe icon at the bottom of the screen, where they can select their language of choice. Because of bilingualism, French and English are available simultaneously.

Now on behalf of the committee members, I would like to welcome our witnesses today.

For the first panel we have former interpreters for the Canadian Armed Forces: Mr. Ghulam Faizi, Mr. Hameed Khan and Mr. Ahmad Shoaib. I hope I pronounced those right.

For the witnesses, you will have exactly five minutes to speak. Please be respectful of the time so members can have as much time as possible to ask you questions.

Now we will proceed with Mr. Faizi, for five minutes.

[Ghulam Faizi, Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, honourable members and guests for giving me the chance to appear in front of the special committee on Afghanistan.

The federal government, and particularly IRCC, should stop playing politics with us because it is a matter of life and death for our parents and siblings.

We represent a large group of former interpreters who helped keep Canadians soldiers safe for so many years in Afghanistan.

Let me give you a sense of how hard it is to live in Afghanistan for an interpreter's family who supported the Canadian mission there. In this month of Ramadan, our families are fasting and hiding from the Taliban government and its supporters. This is what our families are going through in Afghanistan. For example, the Taliban raided the house of one of our former interpreters. His brother burned all the documents, and he was only able to send one of his brothers to Pakistan. He tells me he cannot afford all of his family members travelling to Pakistan at the same time and arranging for them to live there. His family is still living in Afghanistan, and they do not know what will happen to them tomorrow. They constantly change their location.

We have had dozens of meetings with IRCC. We have wanted positive results from one week to the next. Why not assign 10 or more case numbers a week to our families' cases? Why not ship 15 cases a week for a final decision to the Abu Dhabi office? We seem to be getting the opposite. We ask the same questions every week, and either the answers we get back are negative, or they tell us they are still chasing these questions.

I will give an example of some of those questions.

We want the IRCC to include four or five family members who left Afghanistan before July 22, 2021. In this current public policy that is made for extended families, the status of those four to five family members in their country is temporary, and they could be deported back to Afghanistan, but the IRCC is not willing to do that.

Moreover, the IRCC must stop double-standard policies. Why do I call them double-standard? It is because IRCC provides a one-year RAP, resettlement assistance program, to SIM applicants, but they recently changed it for families. The website says that our extended families will not be covered under the RAP program for one year when they come to Canada.

How can I or another former Canadian interpreter support his parents and siblings to rent them a place for the first year or uphold them well? None of them will have a basic job when they arrive in Canada.

The Minister of Immigration made promises directly to us, and we want him to keep these promises. We want him to process the rest of the applications and assign case numbers to those applications that have been waiting in his office for more than three months. He personally told us, “We control paperwork, and I will make sure, and my team will make sure you guys will have case numbers for your applications within two weeks,” but for more than 65 persons, our applications are still being ignored or not being assigned any case numbers.

Second, he also promised us that the first batch of our extended families would arrive in the first quarter of 2022. We want him to keep this promise. We have zero family members arriving under this current policy. We want him to include these four to five families. These are also our families in third countries. They are temporarily living there, and they will be deported.

We want him to do more and talk to the Pakistani delegation to provide our families with a single travel document or to provide passes so that our families can travel to Pakistan without passports, which we have a problem with.

We want him to talk with the Qatari government about securing chartered flights from Kabul airport to Doha or UAE, because Qatar controls airports in Afghanistan currently. We want to ask him to provide the same sort of services to our families as they arranged for the same program. We want him to keep his promises and do his moral obligation.

Thank you, everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Faizi.

Now we will go to Mr. Khan.

Mr. Khan, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Hameed Khan, Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the respective members of the Special Committee on Afghanistan, for giving us the opportunity to come here to discuss the problems we have with the IRCC and the Government of Canada.

I want to start with the fall of Kabul. The fall of Kabul was a devastating tragedy for all of us. That moment, watching it on TV, was the last hope that we were all losing. We lost. We failed to build a society where freedom and women's rights are respected, where everyone has an opportunity to be what they want, where the dreams of the young generation can be seen and where minorities have a voice. This pain will always be hunting us down, because we believed in it and we fought for it with the Canadian Forces, shoulder to shoulder. We were their eyes and ears on the ground. Many of our brethren and sisters died in these years, some on the front lines with the Canadian soldiers and some from assassination by the Taliban after their service.

The fall of Kabul was a devastating tragedy for all of us. It was a tragedy that puts all our families at risk. It was a risk that none of our families took part in, but they are there because of our enduring relationship with the Canadian Armed Forces and its civilian mission in Afghanistan.

Look at us now. We're here talking about a life-and-death situation. We're asking the Canadian public, we're asking lawmakers, we're asking parliamentarians and we're asking the government officials to listen to us. Listen to our concerns. Listen to our cries. We are in desperate need of saving our families. They are all hiding, one way or another, moving from one house to another house. People have been chased down. People's homes are being searched. It is a dire situation.

Most of the families are starving. We are all living in fear that this is the last day they will see. We are here because of our enduring relationship with Canada. None of our families deserved this.

The Taliban have done multiple killings of anyone considered a traitor. This knot is now getting tighter, as they enter and search houses of suspected family members of those who worked with NATO or ISAF forces. Many have burned the paperwork that connects our families to Canada. First-hand reports paint a sad situation. Valuables are being taken, leaving them no choice but to starve. Taliban are physically assaulting not only the men but also the women of the family members of the former interpreters.

These are true stories. I personally know two former interpreters in British Columbia. They are very close to me. The Taliban went to their houses and took their valuables, cars and motorcycles. They showed no mercy to the men and women, physically assaulting the latter, which is unheard of in Afghan society.

The Taliban justify the redistribution of wealth and valuables from former interpreters and the people who worked with NATO and ISAF forces, because they say that this money or property was earned through illegal means, and since they are fighting the jihad, that wealth can be taken by force.

We receive phone calls from former interpreters. They cry their hearts out to us as their members and their representatives. They ask us to save their families. The answer, of course, is, no, we can't save anyone; we don't have any power in our hands.

We ask our Prime Minister, we ask the Minister at IRCC, and we ask the honourable parliamentarians to help us in this matter. We're doing what we can with multiple protests. We organized two hunger strikes. We provided IRCC with consolidated lists with our families' names and information. We submitted the necessary paperwork when the government opened the web portal for our families on December 9, 2021.

We have had 29 meetings so far with IRCC officials. I'll talk about what we have received so far. This will take only one more minute, I promise, and then I will finish.

What did we receive? We received a promise of urgent processing; a promise to bring families to Canada, starting in the first quarter of 2022; a promise to get UCI numbers; and a promise to work with third countries to bring our families safely to Canada.

Promises are what we have gotten.

No families have arrived. Zero members of our family have arrived. Sixty-five per cent—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Khan, your time is up.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

If you can wrap it up in 15 seconds, then I'll go to the next member.

[Hameed Khan]

Okay.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

We have four demands that I've listed here:

One, issue all remaining UCI numbers within one month. Understandably, there may be exceptions.

Two, provide clear time frames for this process.

Three, provide a clear passage.

Four, provide assistance for people travelling to Pakistan or if they are already in Pakistan, including hiring accommodations and financial support.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Khan.

We'll now go to Mr. Ahmad Shoaib.

Mr. Shoaid, you have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Ahmad Shoaib, Former Interpreter, Canadian Armed Forces, As an Individual]

Thank you so much.

Thanks for having us here today.

Thanks for giving us the time and listening to our sorrows, our grief and our struggles.

Thank you so much for the special Afghanistan committee with regard to interpreters' extended families and the misleading promises of the IRCC.

What brought us to this special Afghanistan committee is the matter of life and death of our loved ones, a matter of life and death of our siblings, the ones who supported us to be on the front line to support the Canadian mission, to work, to stay there and to stay strong. Today they are in Afghanistan, and we are helpless.

We, the former interpreters, were under contract to the Canadian Forces and the Canadian government while we were there on the front line supporting the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Afghan interpreters who were once heroes to the Government of Canada are zero today because they are stressed, depressed, panicking and mentally unstable due to the live threat to their families and their loved ones.

We have been going through the toughest times of our lives. We will bring up families suffering as an example. I will use my family as an example. How is my family doing as an example of the 300 other families?

My family has been exiled and expelled from our province, and all they had has been confiscated by the Taliban. Our house has been destroyed by the Taliban. The main problem we have is that we cannot go back to our province. Since the Taliban came into power, my family has been on the run to make sure they stay safe and alive. This is one of our main concerns. We have been talking about one specific thing with IRCC from day one, and it's been over seven months since we started this mission or this battle for our families.

This is a matter of life and death. It's not a matter of pay for work. We want them to be evacuated to a third country to make sure they are safe and to make sure they don't become the victim of our enduring relationship with the Canadian government.

It's been months that we have been in direct contact with IRCC to bring up our problems and our family's struggles to survive. We have been telling IRCC the grim realities and what our families are going through. They take notes, and their answer is “we'll get back to you.” We still have dozens of unanswered questions. Sixty-five per cent of the extended families of our former interpreters are still waiting. Sixty-five per cent is big number to be still waiting to receive their UCI and G numbers, but the IRCC is pushing us to get passports. This means we have to disclose our portfolio to let the Taliban recognize who we are. We have to go there to get passports and other required documents, but taking such a action is not safe for our families.

We have a lot of problems. The main problem is that the summer is now here. We kindly told the IRCC months ago that the summer was arriving. We have experienced the struggles of all the people who have been supporting the government and NATO and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. Now that the summer is here, our families are struggling. We told them this months ago. Who is going to be responsible for that?

If being human matters, why are we pushing our families—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Hello, can you hear me, Mr. Shoaib?

You have already gone to six minutes.

[Ahmad Shoaib]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I'm sorry. I have to ask you to stop.

Once the members ask you questions, you can cover that.

I hate to cut you off. That's why I said we have to respect the five-minute time. I'm so sorry.

Thank you, though.

[Ahmad Shoaib]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Now, we'll start with a round of questions.

Before I start, I want to remind all honourable members that if you are not on camera, then you are not counted as present as you would be if you were in your chair in the room. We still have quorum, but I would request that every member pay attention to that. Thank you.

I will now go to the honourable member, Jasraj Singh Hallan, for six minutes.

Please, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

First and foremost, thank you for your service to Canada and for your advocacy, not just on behalf of your family but on behalf of other families who are stuck in this loophole and this bureaucratic mess that they are caught up in today.

I also want to say how much of a pleasure it was to meet all of you on Parliament Hill when you were all on a hunger strike. You were on strike because of the absolute failure by this Liberal government to address your concerns.

Mr. Faizi, when we were speaking on the Hill, you spoke about and showed me that the Minister of Immigration had made some insensitive comments towards your family members and those of others, in the sense that he implied that they were security threats, according to what we talked about on the Hill. I did ask the minister to apologize for that twice. He refused to do that. Has the minister reached out to you in any way?

I also mentioned that he met with your families plenty of times, and they still haven't had any response. Has he reached out at all to apologize for these insensitive comments?

[Ghulam Faizi]

Thank you, Mr. Hallan.

No, he did not reach out to us, and we are still waiting to meet with him because we requested a meeting. The department told us he would try to find a place in mid June. We are still waiting on this.

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

I hope he hears your concerns and apologizes for those insensitive comments that he made.

Even in my office, we hear lots of concerns about not getting reference numbers after applying to this special program.

Are there any families that you are aware of, Mr. Faizi or Mr. Shoaib, that have their UCI or any type of reference numbers now?

[Ghulam Faizi]

We haven't received any UCI or G numbers after the application arrived at the IRCC office as of January 10. They stopped completely, and we got zero UCI or G numbers after that. Before that, we got about 34 to 35 persons ahead of them.

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

Because you don't have any reference numbers, I am sure that a lot of them have not even received any biometrics.

Have you heard of their getting biometrics letters or anything like that?

[Ahmad Shoaib]

Actually, our main problem is getting UCI and G numbers. If we do not get UCI and G numbers, that means we are not in the system, so we cannot go further than that.

Our first demand is our UCI and G numbers.

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

Has long has it taken in your eyes to get these UCI numbers? When did they apply?

[Ahmad Shoaib]

I'm an example of the rest of the interpreters. I've been waiting for 129 days to receive my UCI or G number, and my family is going through the toughest time of their lives.

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

We heard through the testimony that you guys have met with the minister's office 28 or 29 times since October 2021. I have been meeting with interpreters here in Calgary since before this selfish election was called.

Have any of you seen any action on some of the promises that were made at some of these meetings or on some of your requests?

[Ahmad Shoaib]

The promises that were made with regard to our families' evacuation were misleading promises. None of those promises was given—

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

What were some of those promises?

[Ahmad Shoaib]

Go ahead.