Evidence of meeting #59 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 letter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
That's a completely different process that happened. My focus was on evacuation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting. The time is up for Ms. Rempel Garner.
We will now proceed to Mr. El-Khoury.
Mr. El-Khoury, you will have six minutes. Please begin.
Liberal
Fayçal El-Khoury Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome, Senator.
I read a number of articles in which you stated that you were confident you were authorized to send the facilitation letters you sent. I'd like to discuss that briefly and ask you for more specific details about this belief. I will rely on some of the facts that you have described. First, I should make it clear that I don't know whether the statements are true or false, but I will rely on them in asking my questions to you today.
In some of the media articles, you state that you were authorized to send facilitation letters and that you did so in good faith. You say that you were authorized to do so by a staff member who provided you with a letter template. Again, I understand that you have a strong desire to help people. I believe that many, if not all, of us around this table have that great desire too, because it's one of common factors that drives people to get involved in public life. However, I firmly believe that fairness and justice must underlie all decisions we make in the course of our work. To me, that means respecting processes and procedures, even if we disagree on what they are.
Let's assume—this is an assumption—that a staff member provided you with the template. As a senator and jurist, did you honestly think, ma'am, that receiving a government document template via email was sufficient to authorize you to officially issue the documents to someone else?
I await your explanation.
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
Thank you very much for your question.
I'm sorry, but I will answer in English, if that's okay.
First of all, the message I received from the chief of staff—not just a staff person but the chief of staff—for the Minister of Defence for Canada said, “I have received this from a colleague at GAC...try it.”
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
No. It said, “a colleague from GAC...try it”. Then there's a period and then “George”. Attached to that was the first template, which included the words “Canadian citizen”. I asked Laura to write back to say that we were helping Afghans and to ask that we please be given a document we could use for Afghans. Very promptly we received a second template with “Canadian citizen” removed. All of the other wording was exactly the same. All of the insignia—the Global Affairs stamp, etc.—was exactly the same.
In an extreme humanitarian crisis, in a huge emergency, is not when bureaucratic processes should triumph. Frankly, the people from the government who were in the midst of that crisis and with whom I was communicating were far more experienced than I was. After many emails and examples we gave saying that these women were being turned away by our own Canadian soldiers—and our raising this went on for days and nights, with us saying, “They say there's a form. What's the form? What is it that these women need?”—finally, around noon on August 25, that was the email we received.
I was not the only one to receive that email. It was sent to Minister Monsef and her staffer. It was sent to me and the colleague I was working with. It came from George Young, and it was copied to Mr. Jungic at Global Affairs.
Liberal
Fayçal El-Khoury Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
In another article, you state that in the alleged emails, the staff member told you that they had received the Global Affairs Canada, or GAC, template, and suggested that you try it. A staff member told you that they had received the template from GAC and suggested that you try it in response to a request from you. It was this specific conversation that you mistook for delegation of authority from the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Minister of Immigration, and you believed that this statement authorized you to distribute facilitation letters on behalf of Ministers of the Crown.
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
Is that a yes or no, sir, that you want? The answer is yes, that is what I believed and that is what I acted on. It was because all of us were working together to try to save lives.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Mr. El-Khoury, your time is up.
We will now proceed with Mr. Simard.
Mr. Simard, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Senator, I'd like to come back to the principle. What I understand is that your goal was to save Afghan women. That was the ultimate goal. It's often said that the end justifies the means. Quite frankly, the fact that you sent facilitation letters that were found to be inauthentic doesn't bother me much. What bothers me is government action. I read somewhere that you provided 640 letters, I believe.
How is it that a senator was contacting Afghan women who may have wanted to come to Canada? I'm having a hard time understanding that.
How is it that the government is not the one primarily responsible for this? How come you were the one taking the lead on what was being done in Afghanistan?
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
There's a practical reality here that we need to keep in mind, and that is that non-governmental organizations and advocates around the world were doing a lot of the heavy lifting to try to save lives. Governments were not able to. They just weren't able to respond to the massive need.
Many of us—certainly in the network of trusted advocates that I was part of—have been working with Afghan women, have been to Afghanistan and have worked with the organizations for 20-plus years. When the request comes in from someone you know and when you are working with others you know who are in direct contact with these Afghans at high risk and they ask if there's something we can do to help, I'm the kind of person.... As I said to my colleagues in the Senate, sir, I came into the Senate as a feminist activist and a human rights lawyer, and that's who I still am. That's why I was responding, and that's why I was working with a trusted network of non-governmental advocates in direct contact with those who were at such extreme risk.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
Thank you.
I'm going to draw a parallel with the work we have to do as MPs in our constituencies. I'm the one who informs the government of the interests of the people in my riding, but to get results, I need the government. I can't believe that the government was not made aware of what you were doing. If you want results, you need someone in the government to know what you're doing and the contacts you are making.
I reiterate what I said in response to the first question: What bothers me isn't so much the way you did it, although that may be debatable, it's the lack of government leadership in this crisis.
You tell me that trusted networks are formed, and I understand all of that, but while you were taking action, what was the government doing? What do you think the ministers responsible for this were doing at that time?
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
I think we need to recall that on August 15, 2021, when Kabul fell to the Taliban, Prime Minister Trudeau called an election. I think there's some relevance here to some of what went on—some of what happened and some of what didn't happen.
I'm a very pragmatic person, sir, and work with the tools that are available, and there was no time. It was announced officially that Canada would be gone by August 31, but we were told unofficially that Canada would be gone by August 27. Indeed, I certainly didn't know that HKIA, the airport at Kabul, was going to be bombed on August 26, thus shutting down the entire air bridge.
What I did know in those days—and they were only days—was that we were working to get mostly women and their families out, and we had no time. We had to use the resources and the relationships that were available. That's what I tried to do.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
You're explaining a bit of the background and that's great. However, since I don't have a lot of time left, I'd just like to ask you one more question.
As you experienced this from the inside, so to speak, can you tell us what might be done differently by the government in a similar crisis in the future?
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
I think the work that has already been done by the Special Committee on Afghanistan, chaired by Michael Chong.... The recommendations are excellent. I think the next step has to be—and I hope it will be for this committee, and I would be very happy to come back to be part of that process—to focus more on the implementation of those recommendations. There's a lot of learning in there.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you. The time is up.
We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.
Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes. Please begin.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you, Senator, for being here today.
I just want to get some facts on the record. Could you tell the committee how many facilitation letters were sent out from your office?
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
I need to clarify—when you say my office—the process that happened. The template we were given by George Young was shared with a number of trusted advocates in different countries who then facilitated, as best they could, people hopefully being accepted by soldiers into the airport.
You asked me for a specific number, but I wasn't keeping track of the numbers. It was about getting as many people, as many women, as possible out.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I'm sorry. I understand that the letter was shared with organizations and trusted advocates so they could distribute letters, but did you not keep track of how many facilitation letters came out of your office?
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
I did not keep close track, no. It was about giving the template to trusted advocates and helping to get the names to create the letters that could be used.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Let me clarify, then. I'm understanding that your office did not send out any facilitation letters to individuals, but rather sent out these facilitation letters to organizations for distribution.
Senator, Manitoba, not affiliated
No, that's not correct. It's not an either-or situation, Ms. Kwan. I will give you a specific example of what I mean.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I'm sorry. Can I just get clarity? Is it the case that your office both sent out letters and shared those letters with trusted organizations?