Evidence of meeting #145 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was living.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
You have half a minute, but I'll just interrupt and stop the clock for a second.
The UNHCR has provided a kit with a map and these statistics. We have to have it translated. You will be getting a visual for this as well; we just haven't had it translated yet.
I'm sorry. Continue.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Very quickly, you're talking about sexual violence, but you didn't mention anything about human trafficking. Is there any evidence that it is also part of the problem in Latin America and South America?
3:50 p.m.
Representative in Canada, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Thank you very much for reminding me. I should have mentioned it.
3:50 p.m.
Representative in Canada, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Indeed, there are a number of trafficking rings operating out of the NCA countries, in particular to Mexico and in Mexico.
February 25th, 2019 / 3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
Just briefly on the topic of Venezuela, it's our understanding that the Maduro regime, as has been mentioned, is blocking aid, which is exacerbating the situation further. It has been suggested that if a motion were moved at the United Nations to remove the credentials of Maduro diplomats around the world, it would perhaps allow organizations such as the IMF to prevent the Maduro regime from continuing to draw on Venezuela's limited gold reserves.
Has there been any attempt by Canada to push for such an action at the United Nations?
3:50 p.m.
Representative in Canada, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
I'm not in a position to respond to this question, because we are dealing with the humanitarian side of the crisis.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay. Thank you.
Chair, I am going to move:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee conduct a study on Yazidi refugee family reunification; that this study examine the backlog in existing sponsorship cases for Yazidi refugees; that this study consider expanding the definition of family members for Yazidis given the severe trauma they have experienced at the hands of ISIS; that this study review the One Year Window of Opportunity Provision; that departmental officials be in appearance for at least one meeting of this study; that the Minister of Immigration be invited to appear; that the Committee report its findings to the House; that this study occur before May 1, 2019; and that pursuant to Standing Order 109, the government table a comprehensive response thereto.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
Chair, I'd like to spend some time discussing why I believe it is incumbent upon us to undertake this study at this particular point in time.
First of all, there have been many reports in the media this week about the Yazidi community as ISIS is being rooted out in some of their strongholds in Syria. Earlier this week, for example, in one of several stories it was reported that 11 Yazidi children were rescued from one of the holdouts and were brought to the Iraqi border.
In fact, this morning I had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Nafiya Naso, who is the head of the Canadian Yazidi Association. In a press conference she stated that some of these recently rescued children actually have family members here in Canada who have been brought to the country.
I want to give a bit of history for my colleagues on this committee and for you, Chair, who may not have been here throughout the course of this Parliament, on the initiative and why this is important for us to undertake today.
First of all, in terms of an annotated history of this particular issue, in the 2015 campaign, an audit was brought to light that had been conducted at the behest of former immigration minister Chris Alexander to look at the list of people being referred to Canada as government-sponsored refugees from the United Nations. The goal of the audit, from my understanding, was to see whether persecuted minorities were being included on that list.
During the course of the campaign, the audit became a source of much controversy, to the point that we found a clip of the now-Prime Minister being asked, point blank, “Would you, if you form government, prioritize or allow persecuted ethnic minorities or religious minorities into the country?” His response was, “No, that's disgusting.”
After that, it became very clear that members of the Yazidi community had not been prioritized by the United Nations or by Canada as part of the Syrian or Iraqi refugee initiative that the government undertook in late 2015 and early 2016.
From there the opposition moved two motions in the House of Commons—the first was defeated—declaring a genocide against the Yazidi people. Then there was quite a bit of political effort and pressure on the government again to declare a genocide, as well as to ensure that members of the Yazidi community were prioritized into the country.
Subsequent to that, there were many questions in the House of Commons, because it took the government quite a long period of time to meet its commitment under that motion. Then, of course, we had other studies in this committee that talked about the resettlement of the Yazidi community, given that they were in an exceptional situation in Canada, in that there was not a large diaspora community in the country. Many people who were being brought here had obviously suffered severe trauma. There were not translators available, as we experienced in our committee here. Chair, you'll remember that well.
One of the key recommendations coming out of this particular study was to expedite the reunification of surviving family members from this community, because.... I've met with people from the community. I met with one woman in Winnipeg, who had survived being abducted. She said she wanted to go back, because at least she could be with her family. She had been told by the government that the family would be reunified, but then of course the minister did not respond to that.
Subsequently, because the government did not move on those recommendations, I sought concurrence in that report in the House of Commons, which forced a vote of the House of Commons on this issue. Subsequent to that vote, the government has still not moved on this issue.
For colleagues, I just want to outline the situation right now, because I have been emailed and called by dozens of members of the community who are in Canada right now who have been told by the government that, even in cases in which their cases meet the criteria for the one-year window of opportunity and they have funds raised through the privately sponsored refugee program...the minister is currently telling these families that it is going to take more than 24 months for their applications to be processed. The response to me was, “How come somebody walking across the border from the United States in upstate New York gets a zero-day processing time, but“—insert name of relative here—“who has just escaped ISIS is being told it's going to take over two years?”
To be clear, the situation in northern Iraq while ISIS strongholds are being removed in Syria is no safer for Yazidis than it was a year or two ago. Many of the camps in Iraq itself are in a dire situation. The community itself is facing persecution within these camps and abroad. They can't go home because their homes have been razed by ISIS. There are mass graves in their former homes. There is still a great degree of threat to this community, and frankly trauma as well.
We're in a situation which, again, has been discussed umpteen times in this committee. The community itself is still largely internally displaced within Iraq. Some people have been rescued—children who had been abducted by ISIS, women who had been abducted by ISIS for the purpose of sexual slavery—but they are not in situations in which they have family members to care for them or in which they have any safety in the camp.
Outside of this particular issue, I think Canada and many communities need to have a conversation about what constitutes a refugee, because we are now seeing instances in which the government here in Canada is pouring an inordinate amount of resources upon people who are in the United States of America and telling survivors of genocide that it will take many years for them to come.
I want to point out something else. The one-year window of opportunity, or the program by which refugees can be reunited with their families, defines family as the following: spouse and children under the age of 19. There is some provision for grandchildren, but it's very small and very narrow.
Here's the interesting thing. I'm not sure whether my colleagues are aware, but under the safe third country agreement with the United States, if somebody illegally enters Canada today from upstate New York and claims asylum, exceptions to the safe third country agreement apply to any family member of that person who is in the U.S.
We have thus a potential situation of chain migration or chain asylum claim processing that's going to happen in Canada. Essentially, if you or I illegally crossed the border from the United States and claimed asylum, the next day your family could go to a legal point of entry and claim asylum under an exception to the safe third country agreement.
Going back to the one-year window of opportunity definition of family, it's spouse and children under the age of 19, but if you're a family member and you're claiming an exception to come to Canada to claim asylum, here is the definition of family under the STCA exemption: spouse, legal guardian, child, father or mother, sister or brother, grandfather or grandmother, grandchild, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, common-law partner, or same-sex partner.
We have a situation whereby a survivor of genocide who's in Canada is being told by our government that their family member does not qualify to come to Canada, but somebody who has legal status in the United States in upstate New York can cross the border illegally and then have their family members come the next day under a much broader definition of family.
I would argue that this sounds slightly ridiculous. It sounds like a complete...I don't know; I would argue it sounds like a complete abrogation or misunderstanding of priorities. I know that my colleagues here don't feel we should necessarily be prioritizing genocide survivors in the first instance, but to me it seems there's something wrong with this.
Members of the community have been writing to my office after diligently writing the minister, after watching us vote on this report in the House of Commons, after coming to Ottawa over and over again, and they are very frustrated with the way the government has chosen to prioritize things in this situation.
In terms of giving some validity as to why this study should be happening now, and to build on the debate that we had in the House of Commons on the concurrence motion, I'm going to read for you some of the letters that I've received in my office. These are from Yazidis who have survived ISIS and are in Canada now. These are some of the cases we are seeing where the immigration minister has chosen to prioritize perhaps not in the right way and are why I believe we need this study.
The first group of people is from Calgary and then there are some from Winnipeg. There are two broad classes of people who fall into this. In the first group are people who have had group-of-five sponsorship funding raised, either through Project Ezra, the work there...the funds are there and their applications are in. They qualify for the one-year window situation, and the minister is telling them that they can stay in their refugee camp for three or four years while we are prioritizing people who are coming in from upstate New York.
There's that group of people, and then there is a large group of people who, for whatever reason, are being told that their families don't qualify to come to Canada, either because they didn't list them on their one-year window application or because the definition of family for victims of genocide is not the same as it is for somebody in upstate New York.
I'm going to start with the latter set of cases because I want to illustrate to you what happens in a situation of genocide if you are rounded up, taken and put into sexual slavery and separated from your family. When you are filling out an application to come to Canada, you might not know if your family is still alive. What we have seen in many instances is that people have presumed that their family is dead and then, through some miracle, they were found to be alive, but we have bureaucrats in IRCC telling them that they are not eligible even if they fall in under the existing definition.
I won't read out names, for safety, but I'm happy to confidentially provide them to the chair, should he be interested, so that he can verify that these are in fact real letters, which I can assure him that they are. These are letters both to me and to the immigration minister.
The first one is as follows: “I am writing to request your help in reuniting me with my family. I came to Canada in 2019 as part of the victims of Daesh program, and my family suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of ISIS. I arrived in Calgary with only four of my seven children. The other three children and my husband are still in captivity with ISIS. Before ISIS I lived in a village with my husband and seven children. We were not a rich family, but we were a happy family because we were all together. When ISIS arrived, my family was captured. We were transferred to Tal Afar, where we were separated. My husband was taken away, but he then was returned to us because he convinced our ISIS captors that we were Muslim. After a month in Tal Afar, we were transferred to Mosul. We were then transferred back to a village near Tal Afar. We were constantly moving across the country in order to hide from the frequent bombing attacks.”
She continues: “One day ISIS decided to take away the men and boys so that they could be used as soldiers and labourers, and they took my 11-year-old daughter, two sons and husband. My 11-year-old daughter was forced into marriage with a Muslim man, and two sons and husband were taken to work as soldiers and labourers for ISIS. I have no idea what has happened to them and thoughts of them suffering haunt my mind. When my husband, daughter and two sons were taken away, my four remaining children and I were placed in an underground prison where we were abused. After three months, we were then transferred to another prison. One day our names were called and we were escorted to a bus where we were taken to our freedom as a result of a prisoner swap. After being released from ISIS we were approached by Canada and offered resettlement in Canada. Initially I was very reluctant to leave, because I still had my husband and three children in captivity and I wanted to be there for them in case they were released. However, as a single mother with four children, I was unable to support my family in Iraq because as a woman I did not have any job opportunities. Therefore, I decided to accept resettlement in Canada because I needed to provide a future for my children. It is for their benefit that I moved with them to Calgary, Canada.”
She continues: “I am now living in safety in Canada and grateful to be safe. However, I continue to be plagued by worry for my family, who remains in captivity. I constantly think of where they are, what they are doing and whether or not they are suffering. I have no idea if they are dead or alive. I feel guilty being so far away from my children who remain in captivity with ISIS. I worry about what they will do if they are released and I'm not there to comfort them. My body is in Canada but my mind is in Iraq. These worries prevent me from sleeping and learning English. I am struggling in Canada, where it is difficult being a single mother to four children while trying to adjust to a new culture, new environment and new language. I need the help of my family. I would like the government to reunite me with my remaining living relatives, namely my sister and uncle. My sister is—and she puts their names here—and they have five children.”
She lists where they are and in which camp. She lists her uncle and his wife and their children. She says, “Please bring them to Canada in order to both keep them safe and help me and my children resettle in Canada. Please help me reunite my remaining family that survived so we can help support each other, heal from our trauma and work towards a productive future in Canada.”
The next one is also from—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, first, I would just like to suspend for a couple of seconds so we can figure out how to respond.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
You cannot move a motion to suspend on a point of order, Chair.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
He hasn't actually moved a motion. He's made a request for a suspension of the meeting, which is in order.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
No. You can't move a motion on a point of order, Chair, and you can't arbitrarily suspend the meeting while I have the floor.
