Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 8th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 49 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Before we proceed, security is here now, so are all members comfortable with having this person remain?

[Some hon. member]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay.

Today, we will be commencing our study on the government's response to the final report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan.

On behalf of all the committee members, I would like to welcome the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and officials from IRCC.

Along with the minister, we are joined by Christiane Fox, deputy minister; Jennifer MacIntyre, assistant deputy minister, Afghanistan; Catherine Scott, assistant deputy minister, settlement and integration; and Pemi Gill, director general, international network.

We will begin with opening remarks from the minister.

Minister, you will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

It's good to see you all again, colleagues. It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to appear before the committee. I have joined you before—not only at the immigration committee, but at the Special Committee on Afghanistan as well—to discuss some of the issues regarding the government's response in terms of the refugee resettlement initiative and trying to provide a second lease on life to some of the world's most vulnerable people.

Our effort in Afghanistan represents one of the most difficult and largest resettlement initiatives in Canadian history. We're doing what we can to help a number of different groups. We are helping people who've served alongside the Canadian Forces and worked with the Government of Canada during our mission in Afghanistan. We are reuniting families for people who've previously been resettled in Canada; and we are helping promote a pathway to Canada for people who are being targeted as a result of who they are, or perhaps of what they contributed.

The challenges associated with this resettlement initiative are unlike any other effort, certainly, that I've been a part of, or, I would suggest, that has taken place in recent history in Canada or most other places in the world. The kinds of challenges we're dealing with range from the chaos that took place during the evacuation as the Taliban closed in on Kabul; the lack of international capacity when it came to refugee resettlement as a result of a number of years where states around the world withdrew from refugee protection during the COVID-19 pandemic; and the lack of a Canadian presence on the ground after the Canadian withdrawal of Canadian Forces. Over the course of the resettlement initiative, there has been a lack of diplomatic presence as well.

Of course, certain continued challenges persist. In particular, there is difficulty in securing safe passage for people who remain inside Afghanistan. I'd remind you that we're dealing with a territory that has been seized by the Taliban, a listed terrorist entity in Canadian law. It can be extraordinarily difficult in the shifting landscape of requirements for people who seek to move throughout and outside of Afghanistan. It presents challenges that are unique to this particular mission.

Despite the intensity of these challenges, there are some successes that we're proud of, though the job is not done. To date, there are approximately 28,000 Afghans who've been successfully resettled in Canada, who have been given that second lease on life. I've had the opportunity to meet a number of them. I'll tell you folks, it's a special experience when you get to join families on the tarmac when a plane arrives. I've watched parents kiss the ground with their kids—the same age as my kids—as they arrive in Canada, because they've finally come to believe that they're safe after the horrific traumas they've suffered.

We're dealing with people who were targeted because they were trying to build a better life for themselves, their families and their community in Afghanistan. They were working as human rights defenders or journalists. They were targeted because of who they were. They were members of the LGBTQ+ community, religious minorities, women leaders and other groups. I often think of women judges who've been seeking to make their way to Canada, who were often responsible for putting members of the Taliban behind bars. They are now persecuted and facing threats of torture or death as a result of their desire to contribute.

I can tell you folks, this is probably one of the things I'm most proud to ever have been involved with. It's one of the most difficult things with which I've ever been involved, but it's the kind of thing that, in my mind, makes the job that we sign up for worth doing.

The opportunity to use my life to contribute to making a difference in my own small way in this role, to protect the lives of others, is something I relish.

I apologize for expressing myself in English. It's a difficult and emotional issue for many people. And yet it's very important to continue to support the most vulnerable of these people. There are now almost 28,000 people who are now safely here in Canada.

This is something I'm proud of. It's something Canadians are proud of. However, challenges remain. There are difficulties for people who are still in Afghanistan. There are difficulties for people in third countries who haven't been able to secure the necessary documents from their current hosts to exit those third countries. Whatever challenges remain, we're not going to waver in our commitment to resettle at least 40,000 Afghan refugees. It's a commitment I'm proud of, but work that we will continue to move our way through until we complete this goal.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'd be happy to take questions from members of the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister.

We will go to our round of questioning, and we will begin with Ms. Rempel Garner for six minutes.

Ms. Rempel Garner, you can please begin.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, I'm aware of the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. As the wife of a U.S. veteran who served in Afghanistan, this issue cuts close to home for me.

My questions relate to recommendation three of the report and the creation of an emergency mechanism to enable fast evacuations of persons in a crisis zone. I'm trying to ascertain if one already formally existed but wasn't disclosed to Parliament.

Evidence exists that a parliamentarian and others within the government felt that the government was so woefully unprepared to evacuate persons from Afghanistan that they resorted to issuing fraudulent documents and used a process by which political staff and a senator got to choose who got on evacuation planes. With nearly one million Afghans who expressed interest in being allowed into Canada, this undermined the fairness of Canada's immigration policies, while putting Afghans like the family of my constituent at risk. My constituents were involved in this, as you know, and will be the object of some of my questions.

Minister, on July 26, you wrote a response to a letter that I wrote on July 7. The subject of the letter related to a family of Afghan nationals my office was assisting, who had allegedly been issued official documentation stating they had been granted a visa to enter Canada. They received this documentation from Senator Marilou McPhedran. In your response, you stated that these letters were inauthentic and that your department had undertaken a review of the matter.

In your investigation, was it determined whether the minister at the time, any IRCC department official or any of the IRCC minister's office staff ever advised any third parties—including ministerial office staff or parliamentarians—to issue official travel documentation to Afghan nationals for the purposes of allowing them access to evacuation flights or to otherwise gain entry into Canada?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much for the question—I appreciate it—and thank you for the letter you sent me this past summer.

The issue that you.... First, the preamble to your question touched on whether there was an emergency evacuation strategy that was available and not used in the instance. No. There was an effort made in that instance to move people as quickly as possible, through the use of these facilitation letters. It's worth exploring, perhaps in a separate question, what we should do going forward to build surge capacity to respond in emergencies.

The facilitation letters you're referring to were issued by the government at the time for people who were intended to come into the program.

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

Thank you. I appreciate your giving background. I'm wondering if your investigation into my letter ever determined whether any of the department officials or political staff advised any third party, including parliamentarians and other political staff, to issue these facilitation letters.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

No. The investigation internal to IRCC concluded that the letters at issue did not come officially from the Government of Canada. There was no information that I received as a result of that investigation along the lines you've suggested.

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

Senator McPhedran asserted in the other place this week that she issued these visa facilitation letters in coordination with the former chief of staff to the defence minister, George Young, and a group of persons who included former cabinet minister Maryam Monsef.

Did your investigation ascertain whether or not her allegation in the Senate was true?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

No. However, it's important that we understand that IRCC is very good at detecting the use of documents that are unofficial. We don't have functionality built into this department to be investigating political staff and parliamentarians. That's why, when we concluded that the letters at issue were not officially offered by the Government of Canada, we shared that with law enforcement—not to make an allegation, by the way, against any particular individual, but to put the documents in the hands of someone who had the ability to investigate as they saw fit.

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

You mentioned that IRCC has the capacity to detect inauthentic documentation. My office was in coordination with your department as early as August 2021, showing them copies of this documentation. Why wasn't it detected that it was inauthentic until after I wrote you the letter in July of last year?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

The cases that you raised with me regarding your constituents helped inform some of the process. The reality was that we first became aware of a media report about this time last year—late January, I believe—that started asking some questions tied to a particular organization. That's when we started the investigation. It took a number of months to reach the conclusion, but your outreach actually helped to facilitate the investigation.

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

Thank you.

As part of your investigation.... There are numerous media articles talking about how Senator McPhedran's letters helped facilitate getting people into the country. How many persons gained access into Canada using Senator McPhedran's letters?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm not aware of any. I think it's important to understand that the facilitation letters were used only to allow people to clear Taliban checkpoints and move throughout Hamid Karzai International Airport. Even people who received legitimate letters from the Government of Canada still had to go through the ordinary application process to qualify for the program.

I'm not aware of anyone who accessed Canada on the basis of these letters.

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

The letter I'm in possession of states that the person it was granted to has been granted a visa to enter Canada.

Ms. Fox, has your department begun an investigation into how many persons were granted entry into Canada using an inauthentic letter issued by a parliamentarian, or anyone else Senator McPhedran raised in the Senate last week?

[Christiane Fox, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I would say that there were none. The facilitation letters were just that: facilitation letters that had the word “visa” in them. However, these were to get through checkpoints. Visas were issued to our clients.

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

Should I have been issuing fake visas to get my constituents into Canada? Do you believe the people who now have these letters should be allowed access into Canada?

[Christiane Fox]

It is really important that when the department issues official Government of Canada letters, the letters are used officially. Therefore, any time we get a suggestion that there is an inauthentic letter in circulation, we have to conduct a review.

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

Minister, do you realize the message this sends? All of us here had constituents trying to flee war zones. They didn't have the luxury of getting these letters. I worked with a family for a year, trying to find out what was going on.

Do you believe the letter Senator McPhedran used...? We know, through media reports, that there are people who got into Canada using these letters. Do you believe people holding them in Afghanistan should be allowed access into Canada? It sends the message that the system is so broken that we should be issuing fake visas to get people into the country.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Chair, I see time has run out. I would be happy to respond. I'll take—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Perhaps you'll get an opportunity to respond in the next round.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Ms. Rempel Garner, I would be happy to respond, should you have more time, because I think this is a very important issue to deal with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to Mr. Dhaliwal.

Mr. Dhaliwal, you will have six minutes.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, Minister, I want to thank you, Deputy Minister Fox and the other associates for appearing today. One thing the honourable members on the other side will agree with is that you are very accessible. Any time we have asked you to come to a meeting, you have promptly responded and been here. I want to commend you, and I hope you will continue to do that.

Afghan issues are very near and dear to me and other members of the Special Committee on Afghanistan, and to many of my constituents as well.

You mentioned that nearly 28,000 of the 40,000 expected Afghans have already arrived in Canada. Are you confident we will meet our target of 40,000? If so, what more needs to be done to ensure the target is met? You also mentioned that this is one of the largest and most difficult efforts we are making. If you had to identify or summarize them, what are some of the key bottlenecks, in terms of reaching the 40,000 personal target?