Often, these children were the sons and daughters of deceased Canadian fathers and lived with their widowed Sudanese mothers. While the children are Canadian, their mothers required visas to accompany them, creating a barrier to leaving a war zone. We raised this issue in April 2024, in July 2024 and many times after.
One Canadian child drowned in an IDP camp after displacement. Other children were hungry, out of school and without access to medicine. While there recently has been some movement on the file, it remains alarmingly slow.
The Canadian Council for Refugees has documented that African applicants face the longest processing times and that African visa offices carry the highest caseload with the least staffing. Our experience aligns with those findings. The issue before us is not simply operational delays. It is an absence of equity, transparency and consistency in Canada's humanitarian response.
If I may say, just to conclude, as a way forward IRCC should implement a standardized crisis response framework with clear service standards for active conflict zones, including urgent processing timelines and transparent benchmarks. Equity safeguards must be embedded into humanitarian programming from the outset, including public reporting on regional processing times and adequate resourcing for African visa offices. IRCC should establish a standing protocol for Canadian children stranded abroad, with accelerated processing and facilitated pathways for accompanying caregivers. Finally, a structured and transparent engagement with affected communities must be formalized to reduce uncertainty and prevent harm.
Canada's humanitarian system should be measured—