Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 19th, 2023

[Marilou McPhedran]

That's correct.

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

How is it possible that you could authorize authentic letters if you're not a member of the government with duly authorized authority to...?

All I'm trying to say, Senator, is that none of us would ever do this, regardless of political stripe, because we understand the division of powers and because of the danger it can pose to soldiers. There are equity issues.

I'll close with this—

[Marilou McPhedran]

Are these women a danger to soldiers? Do you want to help me understand that?

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

How do you know who was on...? You just said you didn't even know who was on the letters.

[Marilou McPhedran]

No, I didn't say that. I said the trusted advocates I was working with knew these women.

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

How were the people you selected more deserving than other people on the government list? How did you determine that?

[Marilou McPhedran]

I didn't determine that. I was doing what I could with the resources I had.

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

Earlier, you also said that you believed that the election had an impact on this. Do you believe that the Prime Minister's calling of the federal election during that time precipitated the need for you to undertake those activities?

[Marilou McPhedran]

I wouldn't put it that way. I would say that there were a number of impacts.

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

Thank you.

My colleague, my caseworker from Ottawa, Mackenzie Schultz is in Ottawa today. She spent a year lobbying the government, trying to get information and going through all the hoops to try to get my family out. Do you think that what you did was better than what she did? Was that more effective?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting—

[Marilou McPhedran]

I commend you for your work as a parliamentarian on this file.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up for Ms. Rempel Garner.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kayabaga.

Ms. Kayabaga, please go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through the chair, I would first like to thank you, Senator, for taking the time to be here today and for answering these very hard questions. I know that you're going to be here for the full two hours, and I really do appreciate your extending your time to answer these really important questions from this committee.

Senator, I'm wondering more broadly if you can opine on whether you think the way in which you operated in this situation set any sort of precedent. There are extreme and unfortunate situations and crises unfolding across the world right now, and Canada responds to several of these. While seldom do we respond to any situation on the scale and magnitude of the fall of Kabul, there are other situations—for example, Uganda right now.

Do you think it would be appropriate for me as a member of Parliament to be working with partners in Uganda to issue letters of my own volition and then tell the government that they need to honour the promises I made? I just don't want people all around the world to think that a Canadian parliamentarian has made a promise to them while they were vulnerable and in a dire situation.

Can you comment on that?

[Marilou McPhedran]

The letters that were conveyed via my office came from Global Affairs Canada. If any promises were made, those promises were made by the Government of Canada. I had nothing to do with the wording of that letter.

The fact that the chief of staff for the Minister of National Defence sent me the template and then sent me a second template that was more appropriate for Afghans to use is, for me, a more than adequate demonstration that, in a massive humanitarian crisis, people like George Young in the government were doing everything they possibly could to try to get people out. Everyone knew that people were going to be left behind, but the people I was working with were working literally night and day to do everything they could to get out as many as they could.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I would like to pick up on something you mentioned earlier regarding the awareness that political staff and ministers might have had about sending these letters. I'm not making a judgment on whether your actions were right or wrong, but I would like us to be very clear not to accidentally place blame on staff members who were doing their jobs. I'm sure you would agree with me.

If you were legally authorized to do this, it would make sense to me that there would be a very long list of staff and ministers who would have been aware of it, but we are instead dealing with a potentially very short list. In regard to this list—Mrs. Radchenko, Mr. Jones, Mr. Jungic and the ministers you previously mentioned—are you telling the committee that you emailed directly to their personal accounts to inform them that you were sending facilitation letters on your own?

[Marilou McPhedran]

You know, I—

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I just want to understand the nature of the correspondence you sent to these staff and ministers—if you're suggesting now that this indicates their knowledge of your activity on their part, if you communicated directly with them on your activity and if you informed them.

[Marilou McPhedran]

Yes. The short answer is yes. They were in a number of these communications. I'm more than happy to table them. I must apologize, because they're only in English. All of these communications occurred in English. If you would like to see them today, I would be more than happy to table them.

It's very clear that there are communications about getting out as many of these facilitation letters as possible. In some of those communications, to be honest with you, usually when pleading for more action I copied the ministers and I copied their chiefs of staff. This went on over several days until the bombing occurred.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Just to clarify, when you say you copied them, did you copy their direct personal emails?

[Marilou McPhedran]

I did.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Okay.

[Marilou McPhedran]

They answered me on occasion and they called me on occasion.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Was it on this specific letter you sent that you said you cc'd them?

[Marilou McPhedran]

It was on the situation, on the fact that we weren't getting many of these women out, on anticipating that the soldiers would let them through and they weren't being let through.