Evidence of meeting #49 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was afghanistan.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
If I were to issue a document that purports to be from the Government of Canada on this issue, you would say that was wrong and I shouldn't be doing it.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Look, the context, I think, depends greatly on what you're sending, to whom and for what purpose. I don't think it's advisable for me, at this committee, to start reaching conclusions about the illegality of a fictional example.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
You're aware, though, of these fraudulent visas that Senator McPhedran was sending to individuals. Are you aware of whether IRCC had any instrument of delegation of authority to the Minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan, anyone employed by the Department of National Defence or the senator in question to issue these documents?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Could I ask the member to repeat the question? I had an interruption with the audio, and it was hard to hear.
Liberal
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Are you aware of whether IRCC had signed any instruments of delegation of authority to the Minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan, anyone employed by the Department of National Defence or the senator in question to issue any documents on your behalf?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
There was some authority given to the Canadian Armed Forces on the ground during the airlift. To my knowledge, if you're asking about whether there were third parties who were authorized at a political level or amongst parliamentarians, no such authorization to issue facilitation letters was given by IRCC.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Okay. Regarding your exempt staff, and I'm thinking in particular of your former chief of staff, Olga Radchenko, and others, did they give written or verbal permission to anybody to bypass the minister's authority and authorize the issuance of these travel documents by the senator in question?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Not to my knowledge, and out of respect for people who have been responsible for saving as many lives around the world as any Canadian I have met in the last number of years, I would ask us to be very careful about attributing malice without evidence to any political staff.
Not to my knowledge.... I don't believe anyone in my office has given such direction or assurances.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
I agree totally with you on that. I think it's a bit of a shame, though, that the policies of your department and the slowness of bringing Afghans to Canada caused somebody to do something that may have been or was outside the norm. I think that's what the concern is. If the department had been working more efficiently and if these people had been coming, maybe that situation wouldn't have had to arise. What do you think of that?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Look, I disagree with your characterization, respectfully, of course. At the time—and of course, I don't have personal experience, because I came into this position shortly afterward—it was apparent that it was a chaotic situation as the Taliban closed in on Kabul. There were many people who were trying to save as many lives as possible.
Where I have some serious concerns is about the idea that someone may have been given the indication that they would be permitted to come to Canada without the person giving it having the authorization to give such direction. It's very serious, because if you look at the potential for a few hundred people, plus an average of eight family members per person, the idea that those people should somehow displace others who have been referred into the program based on their vulnerability is something I think we need to take seriously.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I don't want to make allegations about a particular person's behaviour under what may have been a circumstance in which they were trying to save lives.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Yes, that's fair enough.
Do you think Canada owes anything to the people who received that documentation, who thought they were coming to Canada?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I think we need to have a full understanding of the expectation that was created by the Government of Canada in these instances.
It's really important that we don't substitute an official process that was designed to bring people based on their vulnerability with one that would allow some people, based on a relationship they may have, to access the program. All the permanent residency programs we're dealing with have a finite number of people, including refugee resettlement. I think it's very important we respect the integrity of the process.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Minister. Time is up for Mr. Redekopp.
We will now proceed to Mr. Ali.
Mr. Ali, you will have five minutes for your round of questioning. You can please begin.
You are on mute.
There are some audio issues to figure out. Mr. Ali, we will come back to you. I'm proceeding to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
The Conservatives nevertheless asked some interesting questions.
Do you think that it's reasonable that ple should have to circumvent the rules because your department is unable to guarantee that they will get to Canada quickly?
If they circumvent the rules to save lives, then estly, I'm not going to hold that against them.
Should people really have to break the laws of their government to succeed in saving lives?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
First, I want to be careful to say that I've not made a conclusion or assertion that people are out breaking laws.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
There is nothing normal about what happened in Kabul. There was a chaotic situation in which the Taliban was closing in to overtake a city that had not been under its control. Thousands of people's lives were saved during that phase. About 3,800 or so from that initial evacuation are actually now living safely in Canada.
I don't think anything about the effort of evacuating a city as it's being overtaken by a listed terrorist entity can be described as normal. There were many people involved who were trying to do their best to help some of the world's most vulnerable people in that moment.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
In short, you think that's all right. Great.
Two weeks ago you told us that you would not be operating on the basis of categories. At the same time, interpreters and people working at Canada's embassy in Afghanistan were taken care of.
I mentioned 65 Afghan judges. In fact I'm going to send your department the list I received from an NGO. You may already have it, but I'll send it to you again.
How can you say that were selecting interpreters and people who worked at the embassy, and then at the same time claim that there are no categories?
Isn't that a paradox?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
No. I appreciate the nature of your question, but if you'll indulge me I can explain.
There are certain categories that we developed to target people either based on their contribution to Canada's effort in Afghanistan, or based on features about them or their activities in life, before the Taliban takeover, that made them particularly vulnerable.
When it came to people's contribution to Canada, we relied on referrals from the Department of National Defence and Global Affairs to identify the people they wanted to refer into the program.
We also created a program for an additional 5,000 extended family members of previously settled interpreters. The other categories that exist include members of the LGBTQ2 community, human rights defenders, journalists and others who are vulnerable—
I'm sorry. Go ahead, Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
I only have 10 seconds left.
You have discretionary power. In the past, your predecessors used this power for Kosovo and Syria, among others.
Why haven't you used it for Afghanistan, Minister?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
There are certain exceptional examples. I know there are some that you and I have spoken about before, where we needed to use some elements of discretion.
Developing the response to Afghanistan involved a great deal of discretion across the creation of new programs that did not exist. We have innovated to bring new referral partners to welcome certain vulnerable communities. We've created new programs that allowed government departments to refer people into our refugee resettlement program in a discretionary way in order to respond to particular needs—
Liberal