Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 7th, 2017

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

I'm looking for the total number of PSR cases from northern Iraq, I guess, who are in the queue.

[Dawn Edlund]

Of all nationalities, not just Yazidis?

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

I'm wondering if you've started breaking it down by ethnicity, persecuted minority group, or that sort of thing.

[Dawn Edlund]

We did an interview trip into northern Iraq in early October. At that point, we were focusing on Syrians who were government-assisted refugees and privately sponsored refugees. In the last interview trip, I think we also did a few privately sponsored refugees.

I would have to figure out what the numbers are.

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

Just to clarify, I guess the information I would like tabled with committee is the total number of privately sponsored refugee cases that are currently pending from northern Iraq, broken down by ethnicity.

[Dawn Edlund]

We can certainly get you the total number of privately sponsored refugees. As you know, we don't track by ethnicity. We track by nationality.

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

But you tracked by ethnicity for this particular case. Is that correct?

[Dawn Edlund]

We did track by ethnicity because of the specific circumstances of the motion from the House of Commons.

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

Okay. But you're no longer tracking by ethnicity.

[Dawn Edlund]

This was exceptional. We virtually never track by ethnicity unless we're specifically requested to do so.

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

Has the government requested that you track by ethnicity the privately sponsored refugee cases that are currently pending?

[Dawn Edlund]

No.

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

Thank you.

[Dawn Edlund]

I'm sorry. That's other than for the Yazidis.

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

Okay, but there has been no other request? All right.

I've had reports of Yazidis who have been resettled in Calgary and do not have access to the Kermanji translation services six months post-settlement, that there's some sort of a six-month cut-off. Is that correct or not?

[Dawn Edlund]

I'm certainly not aware of anything of that nature, and I know that we are just moving to.... Actually, the Calgary Catholic immigration service is hiring a young woman from Winnipeg who is a Kermanji interpreter. She wants to move to Calgary to support.

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

Can you provide the committee with the number of Yazidis who have been resettled who currently do not have access to translation services? It's been noted that for some of these women having Arabic spoken to them as a substitute language is traumatic, given their experience.

Some of the cases we've heard about anecdotally in my office have been that there are women who do not have access to the translation services six months after resettlement. Many of them can't access services because of that, and isolation is becoming a problem. I would like in short order the number of translators who are available to this community, how many of these refugees who have been resettled still have access to translation services, and how many do not.

The other component that I'd like to touch on is mental health support for Yazidi women and others—essentially, the entire Yazidi cohort. Can you please table with committee the plan to interact with the provinces to provide specialized mental health support for the Yazidi survivors?

[Dawn Edlund]

As I said during my opening remarks, the local immigration partnerships have been helping us very much by making sure we coordinate all of the various resources that are available—

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

Is there a formal plan to provide that service?

[Dawn Edlund]

I think that in each community the local immigration partnerships have been coordinating everybody and have been planning as they go. I don't know if they have a formal written plan.

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

You don't have oversight on that integration support.

[Dawn Edlund]

We have insight into the integration supports that people have been using, but keep in mind that for access to medical services, because the resettled refugees are permanent residents, their primary health care coverage is coming through the province where they've been resettled.

We do have the interim federal health—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need to end that there. We're a little over time.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the officials for coming back to our committee to give us this update.

I'd like to follow up a bit, particularly on the resettlement services for the individuals who have arrived. We know about the need for counselling support, and for mental health support in particular, and I'm wondering about the locations where these individuals have been placed to resettle. Do we have any sense in those communities of whether there are indeed medical service providers, counsellors, psychologists, and so on, who have the language capacity to provide that support to these individuals?

[Dawn Edlund]

Through the interim federal health program, our translation services are paid for by the federal government. We arrange in the context of the services we're reimbursing that the translation service is available. Again, working with the community, and with what the local immigration partnerships have done, we're very conscious of the idea of individuals being able to have appropriate translation.

We could find more information as to what specific supports they put in place to make sure that's available.