Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 12th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Just a minute. I have to do some housekeeping.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

There's time left here, Mr. Chair, so let me make a motion here quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

It's 6.30. Is there a unanimous consent to adjourn the meeting?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

No.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Then I suspend the meeting. You have the floor next time.

[The meeting was suspended at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 12]

[The meeting resumed at 11:02 a.m., Monday, June 17]

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Good morning.

I call the meeting to order. We are meeting in public.

Welcome to the continuation of meeting number 106 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

From our agenda, we dealt with the mandatory provident fund and delays for Hong Kongers last week. The next point to discuss is the draft letter regarding the government's response to the final report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan.

At the end of the meeting, as I said earlier, there will be Punjabi food, and all the staff, support staff and honourable members are welcome to join us.

To avoid audio feedback, before we begin, I would like to ask all members and other in-person participants to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.

Please take note of the following preventive measures in place to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters.

Only use a black, approved earpiece. Keep your earpiece away from all microphones at all times. When you are not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the sticker placed on the table for this purpose. Thank you for your co-operation.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking.

For members in the room in person, please raise your hand if you wish to speak. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your understanding in this regard. As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.

To go back to the Afghanistan letter and press release, the discussion regarding the draft letter was previously done in camera. I ask all members to be careful about disclosing information that we have decided on or discussed in camera.

We need to confirm all paragraphs of the letter before we can look at the press release.

Last week, we suspended the meeting. We had a list of speakers. Before I give that list of speakers, I'd like to welcome Madam Brière and Madam Dhillon to the committee.

The following members were on the speakers list. We have Mr. McLean—he had the floor—then Mr. Chiang, Mr. Redekopp, Mr. Ali, Madam Kwan, Madam Kayabaga and Mr. El-Khoury.

Mr. McLean, please go ahead.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you.

The purpose of the meeting today, of course, is to look at the letter on Afghanistan that this committee has had for quite some time. It's my pleasure to introduce this motion today. I'll read it out loud, Mr. Chair:

That regarding the draft letter concerning the government's response to the Final Report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan as sent to committee members on May 21, 2024, the paragraphs numbered 19, 20 and 23 be deemed adopted without amendment; that the letter and news release be then deemed adopted; that the chair be then instructed to transmit the letter to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship on the second business day following the adoption of this motion; that the chair then issue the news release on behalf of the committee immediately upon transmitting the letter to the minister; that the letter and the news release be then posted to the committee’s website; and that the study be then deemed concluded.

I'll explain why this is very important and why we need to get this moving as quickly as possible.

I've been on this committee since September, and we've been looking at this. I looked at how many meetings we've dedicated to this letter on Afghanistan, which has been shortened to a small letter only, and we've had 18 meetings, and that's being conservative as far as the amount of time we've devoted to it. It is a short letter, but let me read to you very quickly what—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. El-Khoury is rising on a point of order.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Is it possible for our colleague to read the motion in French also, please?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Absolutely, although I didn't think that was necessary. I'm happy to do it if you'd like—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. McLean, it's your call.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I think there is enough that I have to talk about here that maybe it'll be repetitive. If Mr. El-Khoury didn't understand it through translation....

Is that the issue, Mr. El-Khoury?

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

We have a member who also speaks French, and English not as well as French, who is Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe. I don't know if Alexis would like the motion to be read in French or not. I leave it up to him.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I’d like to say we received the motion in both official languages, so all is well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Okay. That's good.

Mr. McLean, please go ahead.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Yes, give me a moment. I will read the motion in French as well, at my colleague’s insistence:

That—

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

It's good to practise your French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Honourable members, I said earlier—and we had a meeting of the Liaison Committee last week—it is very important that only one person speak because we need to take into consideration the health of our interpreters and other people who are participating here.

Please raise your hand if you wish to speak and I will acknowledge you.

Mr. McLean, please go ahead.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you.

I'll start again so there's no confusion.

That regarding the draft letter concerning the government’s response to the Final Report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan as sent to committee members on May 21, 2024, the paragraphs numbered 19, 20, and 23 be deemed adopted without amendment; that the letter and news release be then deemed adopted; that the Chair be then instructed to transmit the letter to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship on the second business day following the adoption of this motion; that the Chair then issue the news release on behalf of the committee immediately upon transmitting the letter to the Minister; that the letter and the news release be then posted to the committee’s website; and that the study be then deemed concluded.

I hope that's well understood.

I want to proceed now with the rationale behind it, Mr. Chair.

We've spoken about the number of meetings we've had and the amount of time this committee has spent on this simple letter the whole time I've been on this committee—since September 2023.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. McLean, anything that we talked about in camera cannot be talked about in public. I just want to remind all members.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I agree. Thank you very much. I'll be very careful about what was said in camera. I recognize the rules in Parliament don't allow me to state in public what was stated in camera in the 18 meetings we had on this, when there seems to be a filibuster on getting this letter actually approved and put in front of the Canadian public. I will be very careful, and if you find me drifting into areas where I may be offside, Mr. Chair, I'd appreciate it if you'd correct me rather than have me go to jail...or any other offence that may incur. I'm onside here with my colleagues, in particular because it is important we do the work of Parliament very effectively and by the rules, but I do want this report to get out.

This report started before I was on this committee. I need people to understand that this is a long time overdue. However, getting familiar with this is the role of parliamentarians, and I have become very familiar with this report and what we need to do.

The paragraph that seems to offend is paragraph 23. Paragraph 23 reads:

The Committee also recommends that the Government requests the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate if charges should be laid against George Young, the Chief of Staff to then Defence Minister Harjit S. Sajjan, for his role in providing a blank template of a Government of Canada document to circumvent established protocols to ensure the safety and security of personnel and process, and for his role in the facilitation of the production of fraudulent Government of Canada documents. This abuse of process could have led to the deaths of Canadian Armed Forces personnel, or the ability for non-state actors to profit from a behind the scenes two-stream process for accessing Canadian travel documents.

This is the offending paragraph that people don't want as part of this report, and I fail to see why. We talk about transparency of government; we talk about many things in this committee. This government says many things that it doesn't seem to want to deliver upon.

Let's go back to the history of what's happened here. There was a federal election in 2021, a federal election that the Prime Minister chose to call during a very precarious time in international affairs in the world. A country that we had supported in the rebuilding processes and in the liberation process.... We had committed, as we say, blood and silver to making sure that there was a democracy that was trying to emerge in Afghanistan. All of that fell apart in the summer of 2021. Many other things were going on in the summer of 2021, as well. At that point in time, the Prime Minister decided that it was time to call an election—an unnecessary, very expensive election—in Canada that led to many consequences across this country. The main consequence was our inability to respond to the international crisis that was happening in Afghanistan.

I recall, Mr. Chair—and I'm sure many of my colleagues around the table recall—the time we spent going door to door and actually getting those people who had relatives in Afghanistan who had helped Canadian forces in Afghanistan—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

There's a point of order.

Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

I believe this meeting is in public. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

That's correct.