On behalf of us all, I want to thank all of you for the work you're doing to try to solve this situation. Sometimes the temptation for us here is to get bogged down in partisan politics. I know I take the bait sometimes, but my hope is that this committee will actually come up with some recommendations that the government can take to accelerate the applications of persecuted minority groups. Certainly at the top of that list would be the Yazidi people, who have been deemed to be victims of genocide.
We've now heard hours and hours of testimony on this issue, and there are a few recommendations I've taken away from various groups. I just want to put them out there, and with the time I have remaining, get you to respond to them to see if the list is comprehensive, if it makes sense, and if there's anything you have to add to the list.
First, we very clearly heard that we need to accelerate the refugee applications of Yazidi victims of genocide.
We need to prioritize refugee applications from persecuted and ethnic minority groups and LGBTI people in Canada's response to the Middle Eastern migrant crisis.
We need to ask the United Nations to make changes to the refugee selection process to accelerate applications for victims of genocide, highly persecuted ethnic and religious minority groups, and LGBTI people.
We need to restore the exemption from the mission cap for Syrian and Iraqi refugees under the privately sponsored refugee program.
We need to identify between 5,000 and 10,000 Yazidi victims of genocide and bring them to Canada as soon as possible as refugees and ensure that adequate support frameworks are in place for integration. Mr. Weiss, this is where your hybrid program is compelling. We can also look to Germany and Australia for best practices on how to do this quickly.
We need to examine and implement innovative ways to identify persecuted ethnic and religious minority groups for resettlement in Canada. Mr. El Shafie, you're not the only one who's talked about the difficulties.
I accept my colleagues' comments about security. Certainly, that's going to be an issue. But if the UN can't get this done quickly, how can Canada look at innovative ways to ensure that we are identifying people on the ground quickly and safely?
We need to ensure that adequate resources are deployed to process applications from these persecuted minority groups so they're not waiting in our system for five years.
One of the things I'd like to add is that I think many of you have significantly more expertise than we do, so one of the recommendations I would make to the minister is to establish a formal ministerial consultation group that's convened immediately to look at solutions for doing this, since many of you have results on the ground.
One of the things we've heard that my colleague, Ms. Kwan, has also been advocating is to ensure that we're tracking the number of people we're bringing in through these programs so we can measure the success and adequacy of the program changes we've made.
Do you think that's a comprehensive list of recommendations? Would you care to comment on it?
