Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 26th, 2023

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

Did you monitor that account between August and September 2021?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I can tell you that I was not looking at emails during that time.

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

You did not monitor your personal email at that time, between August and September 2021.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

If I can answer the whole question, at that time, the situation was so dire that we had to stay focused, and communication at that time was done very quickly. I had no time then to be looking at emails. I was focused on the briefings, which—

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

Thank you.

Has Mr. Young faced any consequences for sending the facilitation letter? I understand that he left the employ of various ministers' offices at the end of December 2022. Did he face any consequences for sending out the visa facilitation letter to Senator McPhedran?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

These are questions that I can't.... There's no way for me to answer. I can focus on what I did during that time.

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

The RCMP said that they did not find a viable case in this situation. I can't remember the exact....

Did the RCMP ever approach you to question you on this matter and on whether or not you were aware?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

No.

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

Okay.

Mr. Young sent this template to Senator McPhedran, who then sent it to a wide variety of people. This was used, ostensibly, as a way to get to Canadian soldiers and other people at the airport—Canadian staff.

Did Mr. Young face any consequence for forwarding a government letter to a senator who, in turn, with no security vetting of who got it, could have put Canadian soldiers or government personnel in danger?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

There is no way for me to answer the questions being posed, but I can tell you that my department and I, including my team, were focused on conducting the operation—

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

Just to finish, you don't know if Senator McPhedran—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Rempel Garner. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kayabaga for six minutes.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through you, I'd like to first say hi, Minister, and welcome to our committee.

I'll go back to what my colleague opposite was asking. She didn't give you a lot of time to answer the questions she was asking. Can you give me an idea of how many emails you were receiving per day during that time?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I'll be honest with you. I don't know. We must have been getting a number of emails, but I did not have time to look at emails. We were focused. We had a battle rhythm with our schedule to manage the operation. We were focused on being on the phone quite regularly, getting brief updates. I don't remember looking at my emails that often.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Then it's fair to say that you wouldn't have been able to track that email. I'm only asking that question because it has been asked in this committee multiple times.

Minister, the Taliban have issued over seven decrees systematically targeting women and girls, including banning education for girls and women above grade 6. In April of this year, the Taliban banned Afghan women from working for UN agencies. Afghanistan ranked last out of 146 countries on gender equality in the World Economic Forum's 2020 global gender index.

Could you tell us more about how you feel when you see the situation of the rights of women disintegrating at the national level in Afghanistan? Could you also speak to what the Government of Canada is doing on this issue?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

This has been very alarming. We have seen, over time, the degradation of the rights of women and girls. When we were first fighting for the right of women and girls to go to school and we were trying to deal with that, the other decree came out that the Taliban did not want women to be involved with humanitarian operations.

We have been working with UN partners and have been very closely in touch with Martin Griffiths, who runs UNOCHA, coordinating his trips into the region, coordinating our messages, staying in touch with our special representatives and working closely with our partners on what we can do. Some work is seen, but a lot of work is being done behind the scenes to try to get some movement.

We have seen some progress, from reporting. In certain portions of the province, communities are not accepting the decree and continue the education of girls, which is good news. However, that is such a small portion. We're hoping to continue to keep the pressure on the Taliban regime on this.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

You mentioned in your opening remarks that Canada has allocated $143 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. Could you elaborate more on what specific kinds of supports have been provided through this funding and what additional steps can be taken with other agencies to develop comprehensive solutions that will address the needs of vulnerable Afghans?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

The needs are great right now. There is a significant concern over food security. Early after the Taliban took over Afghanistan and the winter was setting in, we knew that over the winter things would be dire, so we put in additional funding immediately of $58 million, and obviously increased it last year to over $142 million. It has focused on basic necessities of life, and medicine as well.

Stephen, do you want to provide any further details?

[Stephen Salewicz, Director General, International Humanitarian Assistance, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Sure, I'd be happy to, Minister.

The government has focused on humanitarian assistance and the basic needs of Afghan individuals. The focus has been on providing blanket food assistance. The minister mentioned that 20 million people are facing food insecurity right now, acute food insecurity, but we are also focused on providing ready-to-use therapeutic feeding. These are foods delivered by UNICEF that are specifically targeted at helping children cope with malnutrition and trying to bring them back from that state.

We've also supported health care through the Red Cross movement, particularly focused on supporting women's health care through the system, as well as on providing non-food items like blankets and shelter over the course of the winter.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

We know that delivering humanitarian aid in Afghanistan has been a difficult task due to a range of different challenges, including security risks, constraints, political instability, corruption and coordination issues. This has been a challenging environment for humanitarian aid delivery.

What lessons can you tell us you've learned from this experience in delivering aid? What lessons can be applied to make this process a lot easier in the future?

[Stephen Salewicz]

Indeed, it is a massive challenge for delivering humanitarian assistance. Last year alone there were 1,400 incidents of interference by the Taliban in humanitarian deliveries. That includes efforts around diverting assistance or identifying beneficiaries who weren't part of the beneficiary role and so on.

I think what that demonstrates is that the system we had in place and that we support—the international humanitarian system—is effective in monitoring and putting in place accountability mechanisms. The monitoring and reporting they do can assure us that the assistance is getting to the individuals who need it, and indeed that this can be replicated in other contexts.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Minister, is there anything else you want to add?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I just want to thank [Inaudible—Editor].

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Now we will move to Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe.

You have six minutes.