Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 19th, 2016

[Mirza Ismail]

With—

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

Mirza, I just have ten seconds left, so a yes or a no.

[Mirza Ismail]

What the UN is doing? Actually the UN is not giving equal rights and we hope that Canada could recognize that and Canada could give, like my colleague said, a quota to the Yazidis.

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

A final word goes to Nadia. Would you characterize the UN process for selecting refugees as flawed, and would you characterize it as being able to adequately protect Yazidis, yes or no?

[Nadia Murad Basee Taha]

Yes. Whether you're talking about the Yazidis or other minorities, yes, there should not be any discrimination against all minorities, but all the more not those who have been subjected to genocide. It's not good. It is flawed, it's not good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel.

Ms. Kwan, for seven minutes please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I want to thank all of the witnesses for their very compelling testimony, and very thoughtful testimony. I think we as committee members learned a lot.

You shared a lot of information and I can't imagine, Nadia, you having to continue to tell your story and having to relive it each and every day when you tell it and share that story. I have to say it is so tremendous what you're doing because you're educating the world to try to make a difference for your people. I thank you for that.

I want to focus on solutions. What can we do as a country here in Canada and with the international community? How can we change the course of what's happening today? Even if we can save one life, it's worth it. That would be to pay tribute to you and your people, and your experiences, and to that of others who have gone through genocide. The Jewish community comes to mind, and Mr. Berson and his community's experience, and that means a lot to all of us. Yesterday I was in discussion with some of the committee members about the work that we do, and perhaps this might be one of the most important moments of the work that we do here at this committee.

Mr. Murad Ismael, you mentioned that you are working on a program with the Australian government. You talk about quota. In your testimony you talk about a quota of 5,000 minimum in bringing Yazidis over here to Canada. Our current immigration level for the humanitarian compassionate category is at 2,800 to 3,600 people. There are limitations with respect to that. The first thing then is to call on the government to increase the numbers so that we can in fact absorb at least to a degree the people who are faced with genocide at the moment from your community. Is that correct?

[Murad Ismael]

First, if you talk about the overall solution in Iraq, it's becoming a proxy war now. The conflict needs to be depoliticized. We need to get rid of ISIS as soon as possible. There is the long-term solution and the short-term solution. I think we need to get on ISIS as soon as possible to get rid of them and establish safe communities for people to go back. At the same time, we need to provide people of vulnerable communities with some sort of guarantee that this will not happen again. If you ask Yazidis or Christians, will you go back to your areas, they will tell you they will not go back unless there is international protection. They are saying that because in many cases those are their neighbours, who are basically in the next village, next door, and they aligned themselves with ISIS when they came, so there's a lot of mistrust in the community.

You have to build peace to bring people back. To establish peace, you have to have justice. That's why we are asking for the ICC to open this case to look into the crimes and to bring the perpetrators to justice. I think I would prefer an approach like Germany's. It was a very quick thing. A decision was made by the German government, actually it was made by the state, not even by the federal government, and then the approval was received from the federal government. They created a committee, the committee went to Iraq and did the interviews very quickly in a couple of months and then we had 1,100 women come to Germany very quickly. I think it's important that we raise all these numbers to bring in refugees, but at the same time I would prefer a targeted program.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay, thank you.

I'm very conscious of time. I have less than three minutes now. I wonder if we can't, as a committee, receive a proposal from you on what that program would look like, in terms of the implementation of such a program for our consideration. We don't have time to get into it in this committee meeting at this moment, but you also talked about targeting victims, women, girls, orphans, children, etc. Could you also highlight what that prioritization would look like in terms of who to target? Could we get a commitment from you to do that?

[Murad Ismael]

Yes. For example we have a database of 900 women. About 600 of them are still in Iraq. They're exactly like Nadia's case. We have databases for the orphans. We have a psychosocial centre where all these women come. We can create a list very quickly and provide it to you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Berson, thank you for Or Shalom and the work that you're doing in the community. I want to go right to the solutions that you have proposed. You have a list of them. Specifically, yesterday we had a presentation from the UN representative who suggested that in places where it is not possible to get to, where we don't have a processing centre and there are security issues, there is a process whereby we could bypass all of that. That is for Canada, as an example, to waive the processing that is required in Canada in order to bring the people over. Is that something that your group will support and call on the government to do?

[David Berson]

I have a lot of respect for the government's processes and procedures, but as someone who's grown up in Canada and lived in other places in the world, I know that we can be extremely persistent in our due diligence. I think that in terms of expediency, accepting the UNHCR's processing and designation—I've been poring over reports from the refugee camps throughout northern Iraq—is a worthwhile and expedient measure to take on.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

There are over 100 families at the moment. Is that correct?

[David Berson]

There are over 100 family members in metro Vancouver, sponsored by about 10 or 11 private sponsorship groups, who have been waiting since November for there to be some contact made with them by the Canadian government. That has yet to happen.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Correct, and you have no sense of when those families would be able to come to Canada because they cannot be processed, and you've been waiting and waiting patiently.

[David Berson]

Yes, and I want to point out that the Kurdish Iraqis and the Kurdish population that exists in that whole area suffer from a high level of persecution in a similar way to the Yazidis.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, we're over time at this point.

Mr. Fragiskatos, you have seven minutes, please.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I echo the sentiments of Ms. Kwan opposite. All of you have shown great bravery today in being here. Needless to say, your advocacy is very important.

I was intrigued to hear of the situation facing Yazidis in the camps. Could you speak to the specific needs of Yazidis in terms of trauma—obviously mental health issues are at play—and specifically the needs of women and children?

Dividing it up, in terms of trauma, Mirza and Murad, if you could speak to that, we'll hear from Nadia on the perspective of women.

[Mirza Ismail]

With the situation of the IDPs, especially when it comes to humanity, order, and medical treatment, they're in a very dire situation. The problem at the organizational level is hard. Whether it's our organization, or his, or any other organization, it's difficult trying to provide medical treatment to those, especially women, who are traumatized while escaping from ISIS. It's difficult trying to do it because it's beyond our capacity. We hope the Canadian government, like Germany, could provide some treatment, or open some facilities until they do something. The most urgent thing we are asking Canada to do is to bring as many as possible of those abducted and the orphans to Canada. The community here is more than willing to work with the government to help and to provide whatever else. They can provide help and support here.

It's very difficult. There are many skin diseases, for example. We are working with some doctors from India, especially kidney doctors, because humans cannot drink the water in the camp. It's very dirty. The food nutrition is bad, and people face many types of diseases. We are now working with some Indian doctors who are willing. They have some volunteers to provide some medical treatment and volunteers to take them to India for medical treatment and then bring them back.

While Canada is accepting refugees, we hope that Canada could be the leading country on these issues. This is the only way the community can survive. These remaining cases, who you can see exist today, are the children of the 74 Islamic genocides. It's not something easy that we face. This time ISIS is doing it openly. They don't hide it. That's the reason we don't think the UN needs any type of investigation. They behead somebody and they put it on video. I think some of you saw the pictures. They rape women, and then they put it on video. They put that on sale on YouTube. They show their work. There's no need to pay someone to investigate and get the information. They tell you.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I understand.

Ms. Taha, if you could speak about the specific needs of Yazidi women in the camps, please?

[Nadia Murad Basee Taha]

For over a year I was in a Kurdistani camp. There were programs to help survivors psychologically. I was offered that, but I did not accept. I did not go because in the camps I did not have access to food, education, electricity, or running water. All the basic needs were not there. I did not go because I felt that psychological therapy would not help me if I end up going back to the camp with this situation. There were other girls with me who had difficult psychological situations. They went to Germany. They received a residence to live in. They received an opportunity to get education. They received all the basic elements of living, so they were healed from their psychological issues without getting specific psychological treatment. I believe that receiving psychological treatment within the camps, even though it is needed...but there are factors that continue to cause these psychological things. Once you provide them with the basics of food, drink, and housing, then they would be probably healed from that.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Even those who are not in the camps face similar issues that are quite traumatic, obviously.

I know my colleague, Randeep, wants to ask a question as well. Mr. Chair, I'll turn it over to Randeep.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Sarai.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Just to start, you have my full sympathies, all three of you, but because of the brevity of time I won't get into that. It's gracious of you and brave of you to come out and share your story, especially you, Nadia.

I want ask some solid questions to figure out how we can help you the best. First, how are the girls able to escape from ISIS control, if you can briefly tell us that? I'm going to give you the questions first. The second is: what is the best way to get them out of Iraq, if they are in Iraq, to a safe third place, such as one of the UN camps? Third, are there any camps run by the UN that are better than the others, for example where you face less discrimination within the camp? Are there any that are particularly better, so we can support those more often?