Thank you.
We are here today to tell you that the private sponsorship of refugees is limited in its effectiveness.
Operation Ezra is a Winnipeg-based private sponsorship program launched by the Jewish community of Winnipeg, now involving 20 partners including Christian, multi-faith Yazidi and Jewish groups. Over the last 18 months, we have raised over $250,000 and are sponsoring a total of seven families, or 41 people altogether. To the best of our knowledge, we're the only private sponsorship program focused on the Yazidi people.
We welcomed our first family of eight people on Monday, July 11. Bringing them to Winnipeg took us a year and a half. It will likely take us another year or more to bring the remaining six families. The complicated and time-consuming private sponsorship refugee and immigration process has just too many obstacles to be an effective solution. Applications are complicated and time-consuming. They are also limited and capped in numbers. Our project is currently on hold because of this. As well, serious bottlenecks exist in the process. There are significant wait times to get interviews and medical and security screening scheduled. Refugees have to be transported to visa offices that can be hours or days away from the camps.
Finally, the responsibility to save the people from genocide cannot be left in the hands of the private sector only. We cannot do enough and we cannot do it fast enough. We need your help.
Our third and last point is that government intervention in the form of a large-scale government program is desperately needed to save the Yazidi people from extinction. The plight of the Yazidi people needs to be given priority in the face of this tragic genocide. We are proposing a hybrid program wherein the government brings in a large number of Yazidi families to Canada and the private sector becomes primarily involved with settlement integration of the refugees.
Any sponsorship of refugees who are in extreme danger, such as the Yazidis, whether private or hybrid, must be given the highest priority and processed with the same speed as government refugees. Canada has a unique opportunity to take action on behalf of the Yazidis and offer refuge to a people who are facing extinction.
I hope and I pray that our government will see that the fate of an entire people rests on our ability to do the right thing. Please, let's bring these people to safety.
Thank you.