Thank you, Chair.
Welcome to all of you, and thank you for coming. I know some of you have made a trip from Toronto and some of you were here. As you can understand, there are going to be hearings again tomorrow, and there will be a little bit of crossover.
Just for the record, I and the vice-chair of the committee are both, I would say, immigrants of a special kind in this country, in that we both sought refuge here. We share with you some of the situations you have. I know others of us have immigrated to this country, and we know the hardships that immigrants go through.
As for myself, I have a staff member in my office who is married to an Iraqi and has immediate family from Iraq. I guess I get to hear it every day. Being born in a refugee camp myself in Greece, I realize the hardships in what you're facing.
I've got a couple of questions, and whoever wants to take a stab at it, please go ahead.
Over the years, and over the last year, some of you have expressed concern that one particular religion has been persecuted more than others. So I throw that in there, and whoever wants to address it, by all means go ahead. Give me 30 seconds to finish—I'll throw out the questions and whoever wants to can take a stab at it.
I realize that today we do have a cross-section of religions represented here. I'm very honoured that Mrs. Yanar Mohammed is here from Baghdad, and we are fortunate to have you here to present to us not only what we hear from people who have been here in this country for 50 years, but also first-hand.
So the aspect of the religion is out there, whoever wants to address it.
Mr. Salam, about the number, you said that 1,000 is not enough. Since last year when this motion was brought onto the floor, the minister, in October, moved to allow fast-tracking of family class and/or spouses. This would not have been done unless the motion had come on the floor. The minister, knowing full well we're going to meet here today and probably are going to raise those concerns—and I'm trying to be very apolitical in this matter—raised the bar to 1,000. Now you said that 1,000 is not enough, and you mentioned something like 10,000.
I also want some of you to address the issue of how the community itself and community partners are not engaged by Citizenship and Immigration, for you to be able to be sponsors of refugees.
Mrs. Al-Sewaidi, you mentioned Damascus. Last week we heard in Vancouver of gross incompetency as well as people in Damascus being on the take, by a member that reported it. Do you have anything to add to that?
Those are my questions, and whoever wants to take a stab at it, please go ahead. One is the number, two is the religion, and three is Damascus and what's happening there.