Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 16th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

[John Mandarino]

We do everything we can to fill those gaps.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Mandarino.

Mr. Saroya, for five minutes please.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, once again.

I have a few questions for the panel. Are there special programs or services available to the refugee women through your organizations, and do they seek to address their unique needs and circumstances? Are the programs you have pre-existing programs, or are they new programs specially created for the Syrian refugees?

We can start with Adeena.

[Adeena Niazi]

Being a women's organization, we have always had special programs for women. Of course, for the support of the Syrian refugees, we have to enhance our programs. We have to include support based on the needs of the Syrians, but all our programs are women centred and look at the special needs of women.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Do you see an increase in the Syrian women coming here with a number of children, and is there more pressure on the system?

[Adeena Niazi]

There has been. One of the positive aspects of working with the Syrian refugees is that there are lots of volunteers from the public that get involved. We used to have 100 volunteers, and now it has increased to 250 volunteers who are coming to help with the Syrian refugees. That's 150 more volunteers included for the Syrians. This is one of the opportunities.

There has been pressure. We work overtime. Our staff works overtime, especially those who speak Arabic. One person who speaks Arabic had to visit 100 new clients in a one-month period, which is a lot of work.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Does the organization get some additional money for these programs?

[Adeena Niazi]

We have only one settlement worker in Toronto, but our Peel office.... We have an office in Peel, and we have a contract with the government. It doesn't get additional funding. What happened is we were cut in our overall funding. A percentage of our funding was cut. There's a line at the bottom where money was put back for Syrian initiatives. We do have wait-lists for other refugees overall, and we were asking for additional money. The money was cut for other refugee immigrants and was put on a different line for Syrian initiatives. That means we do not have any additional funding for that; it's just that the funds were shifted from one category to another. It's very difficult for us to manage because we cannot kick out refugees and immigrants from that class in order to accommodate Syrians. That has been a challenge.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Are you saying we have a double standard, one for the Syrians and one for the others?

[Adeena Niazi]

I can't say it's a double standard, because Syria was a special initiative, and we appreciate it. We applaud the government for this initiative, and it had to do it. What we are saying is the needs of other refugees, whether they are overseas or they are here in Canada, have to be taken into consideration, and they have to be treated equally.

We are happy for the Syrians, but we want the same for other refugees and newcomers.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Would you like to add something else?

[Moy Wong-Tam]

With the overall budget—although the federal government has said it has provided $38.6 million extra to help with the Syrian refugees—I think the bulk of that has gone into transportation and hotels. What's left for settlement services is very small. We have been told in our budget that 5% of our existing budget could be allocated to Syrian refugee initiatives, but that means we have to cut something else.

We don't want to set up this dynamic where all the other immigrants feel that Syrian refugees are special. What about the other refugees? What about the other immigrants? It's difficult for agencies that don't get additional funding, but to be fair, IRCC is looking at additional summer programs. Decisions haven't been made as to what we can do with summer programs.

It's very short. There are only two months in the summer that we can do something with either the children or the women. More than half of the government-sponsored refugees have children under 14 years. We're looking at a huge youth population. It's great for the demographics of Canada in the long run, but in the meantime, we have to invest something in the youth programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Wong-Tam.

We will now suspend to allow the witnesses to leave. We will deal with some committee business that we agreed to discuss in the last half hour.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

The meeting resumes.

We have a motion before us that we agreed to deal with today.

Ms. Rempel, the floor is yours.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Earlier today, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report entitled, “'They Came to Destroy': ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis”. The summary of this report states:

ISIS has committed the crime of genocide as well as multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Yazidis, thousands of whom are held captive in the Syrian Arab Republic where they are subjected to almost unimaginable horrors. The present report, which focuses on violations committed in Syria, is based on 45 interviews with survivors, religious leaders, smugglers, activists, lawyers, medical personnel, and journalists. Considerable documentary material was used to corroborate information collected by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. ISIS has sought to destroy the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community, and erasing their identity as Yazidis. The public statements and conduct of ISIS and its fighters clearly demonstrate that ISIS intended to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, composing the majority of the world’s Yazidi population, in whole or in part.

The summary concludes by saying, “The genocide of the Yazidis is on-going.”

On page 37 of this report, the commission begins its recommendations. Under section 212, which is, “The Commission recommends to the international community”, it recommends, “Recognize ISIS’s commission of the crime of genocide against the Yazidis of Sinjar”.

It goes on with several other significant recommendations, but my motion today deals with the recommendation under paragraph 212(g), which is “Accelerate the asylum applications of Yazidi victims of genocide”.

During the course of our study looking at the government's response to the Syrian refugee crisis, we have heard from many groups that it is difficult and that there are many roadblocks in having the ability to bring Yazidis to Canada. In fact, we heard Ms. Dawn Edlund, a department official, say that, in terms of what the department is tracking, the department has tracked only nine cases of Yazidis being processed to date.

There are groups in Winnipeg and around the country. I will reference one. The title of the umbrella organization is Operation Ezra, led by the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue. I understand the minister has already met with this group. They have raised over $250,000 to privately sponsor seven Yazidi families. There have been other groups that have presented to the committee and have said that we should be looking at ways to, as the UN has recommended, “accelerate the asylum applications of Yazidi victims of genocide”.

I think that the information presented to the committee to date shows that the government and our country writ large would benefit from a committee study that would look at ways in which we could accelerate this, given that there has been a significant amount of evidence showing that there are significant roadblocks that groups experience in order to help these people.

Given the urgency of this report, the urgency that the United Nations has compelled upon us with this particular recommendation, I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee study ways for Canada to—

—as the UN report lays it out—

— to accelerate the asylum applications of Yazidi victims of genocide; that this study be comprised of no less than three (3) meetings to be held as soon as possible; that departmental officials be in attendance for at least one (1) meeting, and that the Committee report its findings to the House; and that Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the government table a comprehensive response thereto.

There are many tools at the disposal of the government that can be used to accelerate the application of asylum claims for groups that are vulnerable. I think that, given the report issued by the UN today, which, through evidence-based analysis over a considerable period of time, explicitly shows that genocide is in fact happening to Yazidis, and the fact that the UN itself has called upon the international community to accelerate asylum applications in this area, the committee would take this to heart, see this as a non-partisan way to help the international community, and certainly look at ways and tools at our disposal to help these people.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel.

Mr. Sarai.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I want to commend Ms. Rempel on her thoughts and concern for the Yazidi people.

I have some suggestions of my own. I think the issue at large is how we deal with domestically displaced people, people in their own countries who are displaced or being harassed. A lot of these are stateless governments or they have civil unrest in which there is no proper form of government and redress for these. But we have a definition of refugees that we must work with. How, too, do we see these people?

I think to address the concerns of constituents of my own riding as well as Mr. Saroya's, who brought up the Afghan Sikhs, and others in this House who have brought up other minorities that are being persecuted, from the Caledonians to other groups, the LGBT communities in Iraq, perhaps we could amend the motion by replacing the words “ways for Canada to accelerate the asylum applications of Yazidi victims of genocide” with the words “options on how Canada can best support vulnerable groups in inaccessible regions” and the words “one (1) meeting” be replaced by the words “two (2) meetings”.

I hope this will address the concerns of various groups that exist in this. The scope should be not as to really hearing about the groups' own vulnerabilities, but how legally, mechanically, this government and governments around the world can help these individuals in these communities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Sarai.

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Through you, Mr. Chair, I'd like to have Mr. Sarai clarify that included in the scope of his amendment of the study, we would be able to look at ways to expedite asylum claims for groups designated as genocide, such as was recommended in the UN report today with the Yazidis.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I think that's the goal of the scope of the study, to figure out how we best deal with those, and I think that would be the study's prerogative. That would be the study's purpose, to figure out ways and how we can help these vulnerable groups.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Kwan, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the committee members actually on both sides of the House with respect to this discussion.

I appreciate the motion that's been brought forward by Ms. Rempel. I think this has been an issue that has been brought to committee members' attention, and for some time has been out in the public in the sense that the atrocities that are taking place have been publicly reported and acknowledged as real, and yet, there seem to be barriers and roadblocks to action from government. We had witnesses who presented to committee around the work that they have been doing, and yet to no avail in terms of really moving this forward.

At the end of the day, what we're talking about is humanity. We now have a situation where other human beings are at extreme risk and have gone through indescribable suffering. I can't even imagine what some of the women and girls have gone through, and yet the international community seems not to be able to do anything.

We have an opportunity here at this committee to look into this issue, to try to find ways to address those barriers and roadblocks preventing humanitarian and compassionate action to be taken from Canada.

I welcome this motion. I welcome the amendment to make the scope broader, because I think it is important to acknowledge that there are a number of different groups and communities that are in similar situations that also need attention as well.

We just heard from a witness today who talked about a couple of groups that she had identified. I myself had been working with other community groups with respect to the LGBTQ community, and, in fact, they have been assessed. They have been processed. The UNHCR has acknowledged the risks that they are in, and they are actually under active persecution at the moment with the risks that they face. And they cannot find a pathway to here, to Canada, without extensive delays.

If we can find a way to expedite the support and the compassionate and humanitarian action from Canada with these vulnerable groups, I'm all for it. I will support the amendment as put forward in support of the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

Mr. Saroya.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Chair, the Yazidi women, especially Sikh groups in Afghanistan, are very dear to my heart. Many other issues are out there. Would three meetings be enough to cover this complicated, big issue, or do we need more than three meetings?