Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 20th, 2016

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

Have you or your organization had a chance to review the report that was recently issued by the UN with regard to the declaration of genocide against Yazidis?

[Drew Boyd]

Yes.

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

There are many recommendations within the report for the international community. I'd like to give you an opportunity to speak to how Canada can respond to most of them, to the ones that were made for member states. Moreover, specifically with regard to the scope of this study as well, based on your experience, perhaps you could speak of specific ways that Canada can fulfill the recommendation of accelerating asylum applications for the Yazidi victims of genocide.

[Drew Boyd]

Certainly. This comes back to what I mentioned in my opening remarks, which is the issue of accessibility, and also the issue of coordination. Because security is still very tenuous in the northern Iraq region and it is a location where those prejudices that have resulted in genocide predate even the Islamic State, it's an incredibly difficult situation to address. The best way for the international community to address it is to build the sort of infrastructure that allows the implementation of asylum applications, the identification of and assistance to vulnerable groups, and that really does involve a concerted physical presence in the region—not necessarily within the conflict zone itself, but the establishment of a base of operations nearby so that the international community can reach out and appeal to and coordinate with the local groups by circumventing some of the power structures, which are obstacles to the implementation of a lot of international programs.

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

Thank you.

I'll turn the floor over to my colleague Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

My question is for both of our witnesses. In Iraq and the Levant, and places where the Rohingya refugees reside, generally speaking, what government document requires the religion of the person to be displayed—passports, visas, birth certificates, work permits, hospital cards, voting cards? Given that our second witness stated that the Rohingya want to be identifiable and not everyone else does, what are the different ways that a person's religions is displayed?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Perhaps we can start with Ms. Lewa.

[Chris Lewa]

I'm not very sure I have completely understood your question, Ms. Gallant. Could you repeat briefly the issue about documentation?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

In some countries, the religion is required to be front and centre. For example, in certain countries the religion of the owner of the passport is front and centre, on the first page of the passport. What other countries that you and our first witness have described require the religion to be prominently displayed in the various forms of government documentation?

[Chris Lewa]

Actually, the Rohingya are stateless and don't have passports. They don't have identity cards. They used to have a temporary small white card, which has now been cancelled. They only have a receipt at the moment. The government has created a system of what they call “citizenship verification”, so that they have to actually reapply for citizenship. Initially in the documents, they had application forms where they had to put in the term “Bengali” as ethnicity, and of course Islam as religion. But because of the fact that they had to put down the term Bengali, which was under the previous government, all the Rohingya refused to participate. Now the NLD has suggested that Bengali should not be put there, but also not Rohingya.

Still, it's very interesting, because in Myanmar, generally the minorities, not just the Rohingya, have always wanted to clarify at least ethnicity on their identity cards, and of course their religion as well. As you know, in other countries.... I remember during the genocide in Rwanda, people had their religion and ethnicity on identity cards, so there was a way to identify them for killing, even. In Myanmar, it's very interesting, because some of the minorities want to be recognized. They insist on having race and religion on their identity cards.

As for passports and all that, no, the Rohingya don't have that. They have these small receipts and that's all. That's why they are undocumented.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Boyd, we are out of time. However, if you'd like to respond to that question, I can provide you with 10 to 15 seconds.

[Drew Boyd]

I would just add that as far as I know, neither Iraq nor Myanmar requires the religion presented predominantly. However, it is important to recognize that in the case of Iraq, it is not necessarily the religion but also the denomination of the religion, Shia or Sunni, which isn't presented in any way. That is also a dividing factor, and that the Sunni Islamic State looks to wipe out Shia.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Kwan, you have seven minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Ms. Lewa, you mentioned the source country class as an item that perhaps could be examined to address this issue. I wonder if you can elaborate on that. That's been a constant theme, I think, throughout our various hearings from different witnesses as a means to address some of the crises that exist in the international community.

[Chris Lewa]

Well, I understand, through colleagues here in Canada, that in 2011 the regulation creating the source country class was repealed. The source country class allowed residents of designated countries to apply directly to Canada for refugee status from inside their own country, whether the country of residence or the country of origin.

I think it could be possible to use that for the Rohingya, especially for particular individuals who are at risk inside the country. Of course, this program would not be without difficulty, but perhaps it could be mitigated by the UNHCR presence in Rakhine State. Since Rakhine State has quite a significant operation there, they could perhaps help identify some particular individuals who may be able to benefit from this. I understand too that the source country class could be reinstated with a simple regulatory amendment restricting its scope to nationals, to habitual residents in a source country. There doesn't need to be a change of legislation in Canada.

Thank you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Yes, you're correct. It's particularly to assist those who are internally displaced in their own country. Thank you for that.

You mentioned a little bit about the humanitarian aid that is required, and in particular access to health care. Do you mean access to medical supplies or to medical personnel? And in terms of international aid, would it be useful or helpful for the international community to send a team of medical personnel there to provide medical assistance. Is it more supplies they need, or is it both? This is just to clarify specifically around the need for humanitarian aid.

[Chris Lewa]

Access to medical care is, of course, one of the biggest problems. I think what is probably most important is perhaps strong advocacy with the government here, because, as you know, there was an attack against the humanitarian agency by Rakhine extremists in 2014. Now the situation there has returned to normal more or less, but the biggest problem is the fact the Rohingya NGO health workers cannot leave the camps, so they can't go out and can't get permission to move. In order to provide assistance to the Rohingya IDPs in the camps, you need people who are able to provide services from their own community, but there has been fear among the Burmese in Rakhine about working with the humanitarian agency because there have been death threats against them.

As I said, the main hospital is in Sittwe. It's the only one that has some equipment. In the camps, there is only one “station hospital”, as they call it, which has two doctors for 90,000 people and who are only working from Monday to Friday. A team of doctors must have permission from the government to work there. It may be useful, but, as you know, MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières, used to work there. They had a large team and were the main provider of health care, and then the Rakhine Buddhists attacked them and forced them out. They've now been allowed back again to the camps, but not as before; they provide just some doctors to the government health service. The big problem is not necessarily the fact that there is no access at all, but the fact that the tension in the the community, especially from the Buddhist hardliners and the monks, is preventing Rohingya from accessing health care. It's freedom of movement and security that are the biggest problems for accessing health care.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I think it was Mr. Tabbara who offered the number of 120,000. I'm wondering whether or not that is your understanding of how many individuals we are looking at in this crisis.

[Chris Lewa]

Yes, 120,000 is the current figure by OCHA, the UN humanitarian aid coordinating agency, of IDPs in camps. These are the ones who are listed by the government and are receiving assistance, because, as I said to your colleague earlier, some of them do not and live in shacks and huts. They are not provided with regular assistance, just with donations, which are not directly official.

The problem in Rakhine State is not just the camps; it's also the population in other Muslim Rohingya villages around the camps. The difference between them is only the fact that they didn't have their houses burned down during the violence, whereas the 120,000 did lose everything. But in terms of access to health care, freedom of movement, access to livelihood, they face the same restrictions.

The authorities mentioned these restrictions as being for security reasons. I would say that's probably partly true, but I also think that something should be done to try to help defuse the situation. It's not going to be easy, as I said, but when I asked many people during my last visit what causes these restrictions of movements, I was told that it was a mixture of orders by the authorities, people being stopped at checkpoints, Rakhine Buddhists threatening the Rohingya that if they go out of their villages they will be attacked, and also fear among the Rohingya community. So addressing that of course is a key problem; and access to health care, and also education and livelihood, are all related to this issue of freedom of movement and access to services.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Zahid, I understand that you'll split your time with Mr. Virani.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with Mr. Virani.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have seven minutes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I want to thank both the witnesses for providing this information to us, and for all the work they are doing. My first question is for Ms. Lewa.

You have mentioned that there are about 120,000 Rohingyas in different camps. In addition to that you mentioned that there are a number of people who are not listed by the government. What are the ways you recommend that those people who are not listed can be identified? What are the best ways to identify those people?

[Chris Lewa]

First, I just want to clarify something. In my presentation, I focused quite a lot on the unregistered refugees outside Myanmar. Here you're mostly talking about the IDP in the camp, the internally displaced persons camp inside Myanmar.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Yes, the IDPs.