Evidence of meeting #83 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was yazidis.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
These are always such traumatic meetings when we hear about the stories of the Yazidis and the horrors that are happening to them and the genocide.
I'm trying to figure out how we can reconcile some of the things we're hearing from the United Nations commission and also how we can identify Yazidis if the UN doesn't do that.
Ms. Naso, you said there are camps that are essentially Yazidi camps. Which camps are they?
Working Committee Member, Operation Ezra
There are camps in Kurdistan. There are seven Yazidi-only camps in Kurdistan, and there is one large camp in Turkey.
Working Committee Member, Operation Ezra
Yes. In Turkey it's the Midyat camp. That's where the families we are privately sponsoring are from. In Iraq there is Khanke camp, and....
Liberal
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
You can provide the committee with a list of the camps.
You would be of the impression that if we targeted our refugee resettlement efforts at those camps, we would inadvertently receive a large number of Yazidis as a result of that.
Working Committee Member, Operation Ezra
Yes.
I can provide those names to the committee.
Director, Yazidi Association of Manitoba
In the past we've offered the IRCC our help. We've offered to be part of the mission that goes to those camps so that we can identify the Yazidi people at the camps themselves and make the processing much easier for everyone. We can settle the families who have escaped the ISIS militants or the women and girls who we talked about today. We are willing to be—
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
This is wonderful. I'm going to move on to my next question, thanks. That's really helpful.
Ms. Abdallah, you speak about the work you're doing in London in the health care system, and you're helping, women, girls, and boys access medical services. Do you provide translation or do you provide counselling? What's your role?
Yezidi Human Rights Activist, Yazda
My role here with the Yazidi ladies is to develop a connection and relationship with them. I see what the family needs. Even other agencies, like the intercommunity health centre, as I said, contact me and sometimes bring me in. At the hospital, I am very much part of the refugee program that has been developed.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
That's great. You're the perfect person to ask this question. How many clients or how many families are you able to help with a full-time position like that?
Yezidi Human Rights Activist, Yazda
I volunteer my time with these girls and ladies, so I'm very limited with my time. I do have to provide for myself. There are bills to pay. I volunteer my time as much as I can. I sit down with them and have conversations and just get them to have this comfort zone with me.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Do you have a sense of how many families you're helping? Do you have a number?
Yezidi Human Rights Activist, Yazda
I'm currently seeing about five families that are survivors. It's difficult for me as an individual to hear their stories and to be so helpless.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
If we were going to train people from within your community to be more like you and to help with this settlement effort, it sounds as though we would need 50 of you to bring in 5,000 people or 100 of you in the different communities. It doesn't sound as though we're at the critical mass yet, but we are moving in the right direction in order to do that. If we're talking about bringing in 5,000 Yazidis, how long will it take to have enough people like you, Ms. Abdallah, in order to provide the services that the refugees will need in order to be properly integrated?
Yezidi Human Rights Activist, Yazda
In the community in London, Ontario, a lot of them are not Yazidis and they are helping the Yazidis. The whole community is coming together and helping each other. Of course they have this comfort zone with me because I speak Kurmanji with them. I'm very comfortable with them. I sit down with them on my own time in places other than hospital settings and all of these other settings that are very overwhelming at times.
I believe it's very important for the Yazidi community to step up to help the new refugees. They feel comfortable. They feel relieved. They feel comfortable enough to tell you what they need and what they require. These people have no idea of our society, so we have to teach them what we have and what kind of services we have.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
In terms of cultural differences, again, please excuse my ignorance of Yazidism, your religion, and your culture, but I'm trying to understand whether or not people want to come to Canada.
If I look at the distribution of Yazidis outside of the Kurdistan area, we're looking at 100,000 in Germany, where there is a solid community where people can interrelate, and then you look down at the list that is on Wikipedia, and you get down as far as 7,000 in Sweden, and throughout the list, there are different numbers, but Canada has such a small number.
Does your culture require a critical mass for people to remain Yazidi in Canada?
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Do people want to stay, or do people want to come to Canada?
Yezidi Human Rights Activist, Yazda
Yes, from my experience, they would love Canada to open its doors. There are not a lot of Yazidis in Canada because we haven't opened the doors for them. We have not given them a chance.
I know that Yazda can provide you documents after document of applications of people who are crying, who are waiting, who are struggling to come to Canada.
