Evidence of meeting #55 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
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
No.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay.
Did your department have any role whatsoever in selecting or identifying any persons? Was it all IRCC?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Yes, exactly. Our mandate is for consular, so in this case it was exclusively focused on Canadian citizens, PRs and their family members.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Canadian citizens, of course, were.... All of these individuals were vetted, and—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
There were no facilitation letters from your department that were not exclusively for Canadian citizens, correct?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Correct, and if I could just add something important about how we use these letters of facilitation—
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Okay.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Just so I understand, there is no possible way, given everything you've just said, that a letter of facilitation from your department could have been used to authorize.... There were no visa facilitation letters that were official from your department that were issued for Afghan nationals, correct? That's just to underscore that point.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Correct, and letters of facilitation don't provide new authorities. They—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
It's established information being put in a letter that so-and-so is Canadian.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I just wanted to get that on the record.
If someone were to use a visa facilitation letter that was for Afghan nationals and it bore the GAC seal, it would not have originated from your department in any way, shape or form.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Again, our facilitation letters were exclusively for consular clients.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
The last thing I wanted to ask about was, I guess, why you guys put up a plaque. Who decided to put up the plaque?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Asia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Madam Chair, I'll start and then pass it to my colleague Julie.
First of all, I understand the concern for the question. There is no closure to the tragedy that's unfolding in Afghanistan. Our department and the immigration department have teams that report to us and continue to work on this every day. The disaster, the tragedy, is not over.
I think there was a decision within our department to recognize that colleagues who had put their own careers, their own selves, into that situation, and had worked through a very traumatic and very difficult period, should get internal recognition for the risks they've taken and the work they've done—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Does the department regret putting that plaque up?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Asia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Madam Chair, I'm not going to presume to speak for the department to answer that question. I think we recognize the spirit in which it was done, which was to recognize individual and team efforts—best efforts—under very difficult situations—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Today, do you think that perhaps that sent a message that it was “job done” and that Afghan nationals and other NGO partners could have misconstrued it?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Asia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I don't think that was the spirit of it and I don't think a reasonable observer would conclude that either the Government of Canada or Global Affairs Canada as an institution in any way, shape or form feels that the response to the fall of Kabul is over. It's an ongoing operational piece of our work every day.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
The plaque's purpose was to commemorate Canada's evacuation of the Afghans. How can you put up a plaque when the job's not done?
Liberal
