Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2023

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

This all brings us back to George Young. He's the Liberal political operative at the centre of the whole Marilou McPhedran case that we talked about before.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to move a motion. I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), (a) the committee extend the total number of meetings currently allocated to the current study regarding the government’s response to the final report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan by one meeting, to be held prior to December 31, 2023; and (b) Mr. George Young be invited to appear for two hours, at a date and time to be fixed by the Chair, but no later than December 31, 2023, to discuss matters related to the current study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Your time is up, Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Is there time on a motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We have to stop because we have the major-generals here. If it is the will of the committee, we can go to debate on this particular motion.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

It's my will, actually.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Do you want the major-generals to be dismissed?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

They seemed a little unclear on the whole situation. They'll probably learn some things during this too, so I think they should stay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I have a list of speakers. I'll go to Ms. Kwan and then Mr. Kmiec.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Excuse me, but I don't think I've relinquished the floor yet.

We had talked at this committee, and the name of George Young had come up many times. He was, of course, former defence minister Sajjan's chief of staff during the evacuation of Kabul, and he was directly referenced to in this committee by both Senator McPhedran and Minister Sajjan. He sort of ended up becoming the nexus point, the centre, of everything that was happening with regard to the scheme that we have been studying.

It's really critical...and we haven't had a chance to hear from him yet. This is my point in this motion. We're kind of going around the edges here. We've heard different things from different people, but the fingers keep pointing back to George Young as the political operative, the chief of staff, who really was the one at the centre of this whole issue.

In some of the documents distributed to the committee by the clerk on May 3, 2023, there are multiple emails between Mr. Young and Senator McPhedran, on which ministers of the current government were copied, about the fake visa facilitation scheme. He was involved in many different communications that went back and forth with Senator McPhedran and emails on which were copied, as was said by the senator, many of the ministers involved in this here.

The problem we have is that we haven't been able to hear from the source of this. We've heard, for example, Mr. Sajjan saying that he didn't read his emails. That's not terribly helpful in this thing, and I believe it's important that we hear from Mr. Young.

No one has been able to answer the questions the committee has on these facilitation letters. Beyond the fake facilitation letters, if you recall, the senator talked about the one letter that said, “try it” and that was him suggesting to her that they didn't know if this would work. It was an attempt. They were desperate to get around the system as well as they could, so he said, here's a fake letter; why don't you just give it a try? That was the “try it” letter that Senator McPhedran referenced.

These are things we need to talk to Mr. Young about to make sure we have the facts and we have the truth at the committee.

On August 23, 2021, Mr. Young wrote the following in an email: “Thank you, Senator...I am putting it into the system. I will also ensure that Foreign Affairs is engaged to follow up, along with IRCC, so that all that...needs to be done can happen simultaneously.”

This kind of goes to the heart of the Afghanistan report and the study, because he was the nexus of this ad hoc government response. How did this happen? How do we move forward? How do we prevent this from happening more? These are the answers we need to get.

When I look at these facilitation letters—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Excuse me, honourable member.

I have everyone on the list. I won't stop you, but the reason is that you still want the witnesses to stay. I think it's time we let them go, because in 15 minutes I don't think all of us will be able to finish and they have a 4:30 hard stop.

Do you agree with me?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

On behalf of the committee, let me continue then.

I'm sorry, Major-Generals. It's a motion right now, so we'll be debating the motion. That's what it is.

That's why I was saying, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank both Major-General Prévost and Major-General Smith for answering in a very open and very clear way.

Thank you. The very best to both of you. With this, you are excused.

Now we will continue with Mr. Redekopp.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

On a point of order, Chair, we have the two major-generals here. I think it would be important that we complete the round of questioning. It's not easy to get these people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mrs. Zahid, that was a good try but the motion is on the floor. I have no choice but to let the motion be debated. That's why I already thanked Major-General Prévost and Major-General Smith.

You are welcome to leave. Thank you very much again for the great input.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Chair, may I have the floor, please?

I would like to ask our colleague Brad Redekopp if it's possible to circulate his motion in French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

It's coming right now. If you can give us two minutes, it will come to you.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I would ask that we stop discussing it until we get it in French, please, because it's a delicate issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Are we okay with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I will suspend the meeting for two minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We've returned. The floor is with Mr. Redekopp.

You had a question, or you said you wanted to call the question.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

No. I was just saying that, if everybody wants to pass it on division, we could move on quickly, but I'm not sure there's support for that.

I just wanted to highlight a few things.

At this committee, as I've said already, the name George Young kept coming up over and over again. It's our belief that we can't get to the bottom of what happened unless we actually hear from George Young, because he knows things that we haven't yet heard in this committee. He's been accused of certain things and hasn't had a chance to defend himself, for one thing. I think he has legitimate information that we do not have.

As you all recall, we have talked about this numerous times, and the issue was always put off. It was said, “We'll deal with that later” or “We'll deal with it when we come to the end.” Here we are. We're at the end. From my perspective, it's really important that we hear from him.

The evidence and the information that were presented by the senator have his name all over things. There are many reports and many things that he has, and we really need to hear from him.

I'll give you an example. There's an email that was sent by George Young to the senator, which says:

Thank you Senator...I am putting it into the system. I will also ensure that Foreign Affairs is engaged to follow up, along with IRCC, so that all that can or needs to be done can happen simultaneously.

I appreciated the previous note. Everyone is working flat out, including folks like yourself, to try to make things happen in these very difficult circumstances. However, whatever we all might be feeling no doubt pales by comparison to the thoughts and feelings that the citizens of Afghanistan must be experiencing.

This was a very difficult time, and people were doing what they felt was the right thing to do. I think that evidence is there in this email. However, that doesn't necessarily make it right.

Again, in the interest of allowing Mr. Young to, number one, provide the missing information that we need for this report and, number two, possibly defend himself if he feels like he's been unjustly accused of things, it's really important that we do this.

With that, Mr. Chair, I will wrap it up. I don't want to take too much time. I know my Bloc friend might be feeling a little tired, so I will stop talking at this point and appeal to the committee to support my motion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.

I have a whole bunch of honourable members.... I have Ms. Kwan and then Mr. Kmiec, Mr. McLean, Mr. Maguire, Mr. Ali, Mr. Chiang, Mr. El-Khoury and Mrs. Zahid. Except for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, everyone's on the list.

I'll give the floor to Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I was very disappointed to not be able to have my opportunity to ask questions of the major-generals. I have another significant question about the Afghan situation. We know that people in Afghanistan right now, especially with Pakistan.... The Pakistani government has sent out the edict that it will now start to arrest people, detain them and send them back to Afghanistan to face the Taliban.

This is very serious. I have a giant pile of files in my office of people who have been left behind. They are people who served Canada and their loved ones and who have been left behind. They are frantic and anxious about the situation.

I wanted to get some insight from the major-generals about the operation that DND might still be embarking on. What other work are they doing to try to bring people to safety, and so on and so forth? Now that opportunity has been lost because of the situation.

Mr. Chair, I'm wondering whether or not I could have the chance to submit written questions to DND so that I could get responses to these important questions about people who are not my constituents but whose lives depend on Canada to get them to safety.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Madam Kwan.

I am fulfilling my role as chair to the best of my ability. The motion is on the floor, so I have to respect that. That's why we are having the discussion on the motion that has been circulated in both official languages. If it is the will of the committee, we can always come back to Ms. Kwan's request.

Right now, I have other members on the list before you, Mr. Redekopp.

I have Mr. Kmiec now.