Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 20th, 2024

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

As the minister pointed out, the aspect of expanding our facilitation is mostly based on whether we are able to get people out from there. We have 986 complete applications, but for which we have been unable to secure the people to come out, even though we're working every single day with Israel and Egypt.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

If that's the approach, then the government may as well just give up and go home because, so far, you have brought nobody. Not one person has come out via the government's process. That is a false answer, I'm sorry. It doesn't even make any sense to suggest that we're just going to pause and see how we do, because, so far, you have not been able to get one person out. If that's the case, then go home.

That cannot be the process. The minimum process the government has to do is to facilitate the people here in getting through all of the Canadian bureaucracy so that they can move on to the next phase. But this cap is preventing people from moving forward into that next phase so that they'll be ready to move forward. This is what I'm hearing from the government, and the government is not doing everything it can to move this process as quickly as possible for people. Isn't that the case?

I want to ask the officials this question. We know that other jurisdictions, other countries, have been able to move this forward. They have been able to get visas issued. Canada has not issued one TRV for people. Others have been able to do so. How is it that they have been able to do so? Is Canada talking to those other countries and their officials about what they're doing to facilitate their processes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Deputy Minister, you have 12 seconds to answer.

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, Canada is the first country with this public policy whereby we have put in place facilitative measures for extended family members. No other country has this program, and any cases, whether they are from Australia or others, are consular cases. None of them have been able to get out as an extended family member or under the eligibility that we have defined, and Canada stays working with Israel and Egypt on that one. That is where the focus is, to get people out and continue to work and even expand this program, as the minister mentioned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Madam Kwan and Deputy Minister.

I'll go to Mr. McLean.

Mr. McLean, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of my colleagues around the table for asking so many excellent questions about the process involved in getting people out of Gaza at this point in time, because it is a mix that we cannot figure out right now, and many people are dialing our offices saying that they're stuck in the process. So thank you, everyone, for your questions.

I do need to ask some questions about Sudan as well. With respect here to everybody who's come here representing people in Gaza, thank you for all of your questions today.

On Sudan, how do you get to 3,250 applicants available to come to Canada from Sudan, first of all?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, as mentioned earlier, when the conflict broke out, we started with assisted departures, and we continue to work towards a program that was announced in February of this year. That had 3,250 as a cap, but we expect that over 5,000 people would be coming through that because of the fact that each of the applicants may have further dependants.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

You're telling us that 3,250 is the cap, but you're saying that it's a fluid cap and that there will be dependants that come with that or that people will bring other people with them after that. It's not a hard cap; it's a soft cap, if you will.

Could you confirm that? Can you also tell us where that number is at this point in time? How many have come in from Sudan?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

To make sure that this was captured correctly, 3,250 is the number of applications. That is the cap. The number of people who can come under each application could be more, and that is why I'm saying that it could actually be more than 5,000.

I also have the number for how many applications we have received from Sudan. If you want, I would be able to explain it to you.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Could you just give me a quick number?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

The applications that have been submitted until now number almost 2,800, as a rough estimate, out of which we have complete applications, which we have confirmed with "anchor" family members, and everything else, of about 458.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

You have three countries here that people have fled to, so you're not really dealing with people in Sudan right now; you're dealing with people in the neighbouring countries because the Sudanese refugees have been fleeing there. Those countries include Chad, South Sudan and Egypt. Egypt is the common link here between these two very difficult situations.

Do you have Canadian personnel on the ground in Egypt who are facilitating how many people we have and how they're actually working to get this through the Egyptian government? Is there a translation of how that works for the people who need to come from Gaza as well?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, we do have a presence on the ground in Egypt. We have an embassy in Cairo where we have immigration officials who are working both with Gaza as well as Sudan.

Because we have a global case management system, we can actually work throughout our network. Some of these applications might actually be done in Jordan or any other place also.

As far as the major case load is concerned, it's right that we have different countries that form a cohort of that. These include Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uganda and other countries. These are some of the applicants who actually have a different country of residence, and they are a part of the cohort we are seeing at this point.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you very much.

When you look at all of these processes, one thing you do is to nail yourself to an order.

What is the process when you go through the application here step by step?

The worst thing we do here is to give people false hope and make them jump through a whole bunch of hoops they are never going to get through. So if you look at all the hurdles that everybody has to go through here and you put it down in an actual operational spreadsheet that lists what happens, what their timeline is on that, where they need to respond and the other officials they have to get to at that point in time, is that something you can provide clarity on to all the people applying?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

You have eight seconds to reply, Deputy Minister.

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, we have a very refined program for getting the completed applications, the work that is entailed in making sure that the eligibility and admissibility is done. This is a permanent resident program. We have a very defined process that we go with. This is also now a special aspect of that. We have a timeline that would be more defined in such a way that it could take—depending on what we have, all the information—until the end of this year or early next year until actual arrivals happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. McLean and Deputy Minister.

We will go to Mr. Ali for five minutes.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the officials for being here.

I agree with my colleague Mr. McLean when he said we should not give false hope to the people who are already in that devastating situation.

Deputy Minister, one of my constituents, Ms. Bessan Khalaf, who is present at today's committee meeting, has 15 immediate family members in Gaza: parents and siblings, plus their families, spouse and kids. They have all applied. Six of them had received recourse through the special Gaza stream. A few also received biometric instructions, but they were not able to complete them as they had to go to Egypt to do them and nobody was allowed to leave or cross the borders. Then one member of the family, my constituent's brother, escaped to Egypt by paying a certain amount of money. Now that he's in Egypt, he has been advised by your office to apply for a regular TRV from Egypt and to flag it as a critical urgent case through the web request form.

How is it that someone can pay money to cross the border from Gaza to Egypt but our government can't get Canadians' families out? Who is making money off those peoples' backs?

Who is making money off the backs of those refugees? Why hasn't our government been able to get the same access to the list of the people permitted to exit Gaza when other countries have been able to do so? Finally, do all Canadians have the same status? Do we all have the same privilege?

Thank you.

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, I'd start by saying that, first of all, we have put a lot of effort into working with the Egyptian and Israeli authorities in submitting our list through COGAT to get the people out of Gaza. We do hear about people using different ways, including paying, and they are getting out. The Government of Canada is continuing to work with the authorities so that we can make an effort to bring them out. That is where our focus has been.

As such, we have not had success, as the minister pointed out. The folks who have actually come out have come out on their own.

In relation to anyone who is out and we see is trying to apply for a TRV, it is a process in which they will not be captured through the public policy because they don't have a code. However, this is a flexibility and an authority that is vested in our officers, who are actually taking into consideration the humanitarian and the compassionate part of it. They are certainly looking at it on a case-by-case basis and are very much leaning forward to make sure that we can actually provide an easy access through a TRV.

Again, as I said, this is not carte blanche, but is being done case by case. Our officers have the ability to use the compassionate and humanitarian situation as they see fit and do that.

Finally, to your point, as a question was asked through you, Mr. Chair, our focus has really been to figure out how we can best support the community that is trapped in Gaza through our diplomatic and bureaucratic efforts—

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry, Chair, I [Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I'll stop the watch and let the deputy minister finish.

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

I was just going to say that we have put a lot of effort into that one, as earlier mentioned, and we will continue to work our diplomatic channels as such.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you.

Honourable member, go ahead with a quick question.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have 30 seconds to give to Nate, my colleague, as well, and then—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I think we should start with Mr. Erskine-Smith.

Go ahead, please.