Debates of Nov. 28th, 2018

Citizenship and Immigration

[Matt DeCourcey, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague enumerate the recommendations the committee provided in its report. We should be clear that the government generally supports the recommendations, because they concern things we are already doing and working on to ensure the proper resettlement, settlement, and integration of survivors of Daesh.

Over 1,400 of them have resettled in Canada as part of this effort and the majority of them are Yazidi women and girls. The majority of that group were actually internally displaced persons, as we responded in one way to the supplemental recommendation made by my NDP colleague from Vancouver East.

I just want to remind the NDP that Canada is now the global leader in refugee resettlement in the world. We are on track to resettle more refugees in Canada than any other country in the world. We have almost quadrupled our privately sponsored refugee spaces to respond to the generosity and desire of Canadians to play a part. We have more than doubled the number of spaces that were available prior to 2015. We have increased the budgets for settlement and integration organizations commensurate with the number of refugees we are bringing to Canada.

Canada is leading the conversations on the compacts on safe and orderly and regular migration and the compacts for refugees, because we know that Canada cannot alone deal with the pressing global challenges facing many vulnerable refugees and other migrants around the world.

We need to work through international co-operation, diplomacy and by sharing our world-leading resettlement efforts to ensure that we can continue to play a leadership role when it comes to vulnerable refugees and migrants globally.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I am not sure if that was a question, Mr. Speaker.

I fully believe that the member is very committed, but I can only look to the committee, which included a majority of Liberal members. It was a unanimous report. I find it hard to believe that since that report was tabled, all of the requests contained in it have been met.

We have been generous to refugees, but there are millions of refugees around the world. We accepted 35,000. That does not mean that we cannot do more.

I understand there are more Yazidi women and children that could be rescued. If there are families that are willing to sponsor them, I do not understand why the government would want to stand in the way of that. It would not cost the public treasury. It simply means that the government would have to lift the cap and let Canadians be generous, which they enjoy being.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to talk about the Yazidis and the horrific situations there have been. We have seen tangible, strong support from the government on this particular issue. In many ways, Canada is leading the world in terms of our acceptance of refugees per capita and by percentage.

I used to be the immigration critic for my party a number of years back. There is a great deal of demand for Canada to look at taking in additional refugees.

I am wondering if the member would apply the same principle she just finished espousing to allow individuals to come here because they already have family members here. Is that something she believes should be universally applied in response to many other horrific situations involving refugees, or is it just Yazidis the member is referring to?

We have to get a sense of where the New Democratic Party is coming from on the issue of refugees. What percentage of the overall immigration numbers do those members believe refugees should make up, or should it be a undefined number? Should we accept whatever number we can get in?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in my speech I was simply speaking to the committee's report, of which the Liberals were the majority.

The committee heard testimony from people like Omar Khoudeida, an activist in the Yazidi community in London. He was of the opinion that special measures for additional resettlement of Yazidi women and children to Canada were necessary given how many are still in refugee camps.

The case that is being made by many, which we are supporting, is in the case of genocide. Surely, there has to be some kind of special consideration. If we made that special consideration in the case of the 1,500, why all of a sudden are we saying we have done our bit^

We have been hearing at the foreign affairs committee about the Congo. Women are being raped and murdered and children taken away as child soldiers. There may be special circumstances in which there are Canadians here who are willing to sponsor extended family. Maybe we should be reconsidering that in some circumstances.

[Matt DeCourcey, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about our government's ongoing efforts to resettle Yazidi women and children in Canada.

Let me be clear that the government concurs with the committee's report. Indeed, the committee's findings will help inform what we have learned already through the Yazidi resettlement initiative. The report will also help guide our programs going forward.

As members know, Canada is committed to helping vulnerable and marginalized populations around the world. Our refugee protection program was designed to save lives, offer protection to displaced and persecuted persons, and to respond to international crises by resettling those in need.

As members may recall, in October 2016, the House of Commons voted unanimously that the Government of Canada provide protection for Yazidi women and girls who are escaping genocide. Since Canada does not offer protection on the basis of religion or ethnicity, but rather on vulnerability, the government's response to this motion focused not only on Yazidi people at risk but also and more broadly on survivors of Daesh.

However, because the Yazidi community suffered a particularly high level of violence at the hands of Daesh, Yazidis figured prominently among the cases referred to us by the United Nations Refugee Agency for resettlement.

The Government of Canada committed to resettling 1,200 survivors of Daesh, including vulnerable Yazidi women and children, as government assisted refugees by the end of 2017. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada worked closely with the United Nations Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration, resettlement assistance program service provider organizations, and other partners to meet this commitment.

With the help and advice of German, Iraqi, and Kurdish authorities, as well as Yazidi leaders, the government determined that the focus of these efforts should be on helping the most vulnerable individuals, rather than on large-scale resettlement. The government also facilitated the private sponsorship of individuals who fall within this vulnerable group, meaning that more Yazidi women and girls, as well as other survivors of Daesh, could arrive in Canada as privately sponsored refugees.

Canada has now welcomed more than 1,400 survivors of Daesh, including 1,310 government-assisted refugees and 94 who were privately sponsored.

As highlighted in the committee's report, the resettlement of this vulnerable population has not been without challenges. That said, I am pleased to report to the House that Yazidi families in Canada are generally integrating well and are showing increased independence in their daily lives.

One of the ways we are facilitating the arrival of this population is to promote connections between service providers and Yazidi leaders and associations to help newly arrived families connect with the broader community. Some are also starting to leverage faith-based community organizations to build further connections within the community.

Among other instances of community building, there is a strong indication that families are feeling empowered and have a clear willingness to engage with the broader community. This is positive news and a good sign that these families will soon be fully integrated into Canadian society.

One of the committee's recommendations is to help foster precisely this type of community building within the Yazidi community. The government is pleased that the committee's thoughts are in line with what we are already doing. More specifically, the committee recommends that we offer newly arrived Yazidi women and children information about existing Yazidi communities in Canada to help build a supportive Canadian network of Yazidi people.

In addition to our efforts to build bridges between service providers and the Yazidi community, the government is exploring the best means of providing information directly to newly arrived Yazidi refugees regarding Yazidi communities in Canada, both before and after their arrival.

As with all government-assisted refugees, Yazidis are resettled in areas where they will be most likely to integrate into the community and have the support they need.

The core cities selected for the resettlement of survivors of Daesh were Toronto, London, Winnipeg and Calgary. These core cities were chosen after comprehensive consultations with various stakeholders and agencies, and the criteria were based on various aspects of the resettlement process. Among these criteria are adequate medical and psychosocial supports, the availability of interpreters, and adequate community capacity to support high needs clients.

The government took great care in choosing these locations to help ensure the best possible resettlement outcomes for this population. While the government supports all efforts to improve access to services by Yazidi women, we do not concur with the committee's recommendation to directly assist Yazidi women in relocating them to areas that are in close proximity to services. That is because Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada plays a limited role in offering housing supports as part of the integration of newcomers.

Through the refugee assistance program, the department offers temporary accommodation to government assisted refugees and the service providers who assist newly arrived refugees in finding permanent housing. Service providers work with refugees to find affordable housing that is in proximity to essential services and to other Yazidi community members. In addition to the settlement assistance program, Yazidi women and children are also eligible beneficiaries under the interim federal health program. Under this program they receive basic coverage for services that include mental health services provided by physicians or services provided by mental health hospitals. They also receive supplemental coverage, including mental health services provided by allied health professionals such as psychotherapists or counsellors.

We also know that the services funded by the interim federal health program are not the only way for Yazidi women and children to receive the support they need. Specialized refugee clinics or even family physicians often play a key role in providing mental health services in response to the traumas this population has faced. Furthermore, all newcomers can access mental health supports through the settlement sector.

The government will continue to work with these health professionals and community organizations in these centres to ensure that the coverage provided through the interim federal health program translates into the services that Yazidis need.

The committee recommends that the government work with relevant partners to invest in improving mental health supports for all refugees in Canada and that we improve access to mental health support for Yazidi women and children in their mother tongue. The government fully supports this recommendation.

In terms of its settlement programming, IRCC also partners with organizations such as the Canadian Mental Health Association and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to help settlement, social service and health care providers identify the mental health needs of refugees and equip them with the training and resources. IRCC will continue to build on our partnerships with these organizations as well as other levels of government to support the mental health and well-being of refugees.

On a similar note, the government also supports the report's recommendation that IRCC anticipate linguistic capacity needs in its resettlement initiatives and expand the provision of professional interpretation for newcomers.

The support services offered by service provider organizations funded by IRCC include child care, transportation assistance, crisis counselling, provisions for persons with disabilities, and translation and interpretation services.

Translation services are available to all newcomers who may need them at any point in the settlement process. Of course, this includes Yazidi newcomers. The government also supports the report's recommendation that IRCC work with other levels of government and professional associations working in interpretation and translation to ensure that professional interpretation is provided to newcomers in Canada. To that end, IRCC has increased its engagement with provinces and territories at both multilateral and bilateral levels.

The government also agrees with the report's recommendation that IRCC continue to support language training for all permanent residents, including refugees. Indeed, IRCC spends about 36% of annual federal settlement funding on language training and an additional 3% of the envelope on language assessment for all eligible clients, including refugees.

Speaking more broadly, the government supports the report's recommendation to increase Canada's refugee resettlement targets. Canada has committed to resettling 27,000 refugees in 2018 and that number will increase to over 31,000 in 2020. With this commitment, our country will be the largest resettlement country in the world. The 2018 immigration levels plan also committed the government to growing overall refugee settlement levels by 17% and, as I said, that takes us to over 31,000 refugees in 2020. In budget 2018, the government committed to resettling an additional 1,000 vulnerable women and girls from conflict zones around the world.

On top of Canada's domestic resettlement initiatives, our country also works with our international partners through the global refugee sponsorship initiative. We already have uptake from at least five countries that are now engaging in resettling refugees in their home countries using the privately sponsored model pioneered in Canada. This initiative is helping those countries set up their own community-sponsored refugee programs modelled on our system. This will help boost resettlement capacity all over the world.

The Government of Canada partially supports the committee's recommendation that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada work with stakeholders to facilitate the private sponsorship of Yazidi women and children and deem these applications over and above the sponsorship agreement holders allocations until 2020. While the government will continue to work with sponsors to facilitate the private sponsorship of survivors of Daesh who are outside their country of nationality, it must ensure that it can manage the number of applications it receives each year in order to process them in a timely manner.

Because demand from sponsors to submit new applications has long outpaced available spaces in the levels plan, we have experienced long wait times and backlogs, which create barriers for Canada to offer timely protection. The current sponsorship agreement holders allocations were selected to support the government's commitments, balancing the interests of Canadians to sponsor with the additional space our levels plan has provided in order to reduce application inventories and processing times.

The Government of Canada certainly supports the report's recommendation that it help internally displaced Yazidi persons return to northern Iraq by working toward creating a favourable environment for that return. Indeed, in 2016, the Government of Canada announced a three-year comprehensive strategy providing humanitarian, developmental, stabilization and security assistance in Iraq. Canada is providing $179.5 million in humanitarian assistance in Iraq to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. Canada is assisting in creating a favourable environment for returns through its stabilization programming in liberated areas. Canada is at the forefront of international diplomacy efforts to bring Daesh to account for crimes against vulnerable groups in Iraq and Syria.

The Government of Canada also supports the report's recommendation that IRCC continue to support settlement service providers assisting Yazidi women and children in developing shared capacity and best practices. It also supports the report's recommendation to work with relevant stakeholders and experts on the development of a best practices guide or series for the settlement sector on the resettlement and integration of vulnerable groups.

In response to the report's recommendation that IRCC support family reunification for survivors of Daesh by considering an indefinite extension to the one-year window of opportunity for them to include immediate family members, the government is partially in support. More specifically, the government will not extend the one-year window provision indefinitely, but it will develop eligibility criteria and implement a temporary extension of this provision for immediate family members of survivors of Daesh.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you and all members for the opportunity to address this important issue in the House this evening and remind Canadians of this government's clear commitment through our immigration levels plan to help grow our economy, to provide opportunities for more family reunification, and specifically on the issue we are here to talk about this evening, continue to be a global leader in providing safe refuge and resettlement opportunity for the world's most vulnerable.

Let me remind everyone in this House that it was this government that reinstituted the interim federal health program that Yazidi women and girls are now accessing today to ensure that they have the mental health supports they need. Let me remind this House that it was under this government that 1,400 survivors of Daesh, the majority of whom were Yazidi women and girls, have been resettled into Canada. Let me remind this House and anyone watching that this government is doubling the spaces available for refugee resettlement in Canada and quadrupling the number of spaces provided to private citizens who are taking a leadership role in helping vulnerable persons, refugees around the world, come to Canada, resettle and make a life for themselves and their families.

We know we have more work to do to ensure proper settlement and immigration of all vulnerable persons when they come to Canada, and that particularly includes Yazidi women and girls, on which the conversation is focused this evening. We will continue to be there, working with our provincial and territorial counterparts, working with the great service provider organizations that I have the pleasure of working with in my home community of Fredericton, and the great service provider organizations that I know are providing particular services to Yazidi women and girls and children in places like Calgary, which I had the chance to visit back in October.

We will continue to play a leadership role when it comes to the global trends where we are seeing more people migrating around the world than ever since World War II, and the refugees that we are seeing being hosted in some of the least developed countries around the world. We will work with them to do our part as a global leader in resettlement and also co-operate internationally with other countries to develop their capacity and ability to provide long-term, sustainable solutions for some of the world's most vulnerable.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone in this place doubts the parliamentary secretary's sincerity. I think this is a subject where all parliamentarians in this place can come together.

In the report, I would draw the member's attention to recommendation seven which, at the end, recommends that the government “work with provincial and municipal governments as well as service provider organizations to ensure resettled Yazidi women and children have improved access to housing which is affordable.”

Before the parliamentary secretary starts talking about the national housing strategy, I want to provide some context and contrast. Yes, the national housing strategy is celebrated as a $40-billion investment over a 10-year period, but a large chunk of that is, in fact, coming from provincial governments and service provider organizations. Furthermore, the lion's share of it is not going to start flowing until 2020.

I discovered an interesting thing a few weeks ago when I substituted on the government operations committee. We found out that the money for the Kinder Morgan purchase of $4.5 billion was outside of the main budgetary process. The money was actually obtained from Export Development Canada and transferred to Trans Mountain Corporation.

Would the hon. member not agree that another Crown corporation, perhaps the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, also deserves a $4.5-billion loan to start building the housing right here and now to address the crisis that we not only have for Yazidi refugees but for many Canadians across the country who may not be able to afford to wait until 2020 or 2021? Will he not agree that maybe a $4.5-billion transfer to CMHC would be a smart idea, if the government is able to afford it for a pipeline?

[Matt DeCourcey]

Mr. Speaker, I would recommend that my colleague stick around later this evening if he wants to talk about the transport of oil. We will be having an engaging conversation about that in a bit.

I know my colleague who sits in front of me in the House of Commons would be able to talk at length about the investments that are already being made through this government's housing strategy in communities right across the country, including in communities where Yazidi women and girls have been resettled.

On the specifics of how the federal government and the immigration department play a role in providing support to resettled refugees through the government refugee assistance program, we provide the support to settlement agencies and support to government-assisted refugees for immediate and interim housing. Those resettlement agencies have a significant role to play in helping to find long-term housing for those refugees once they are able to resettle in the community.

There is certainly an ongoing conversation that must be had by the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, and community organizations as well as everyday citizens who all have a role to play to ensure resettlement, settlement and integration of Yazidi women and girls, all refugees and all newcomers to Canada to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to be safe and well and contribute to Canada.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians were rightly horrified by the situation of the Yazidis. All Canadians can be very proud of what Canada has done to give safe haven to so many Yazidi women and girls. In addition to providing a safe haven, there is the work that my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, spoke about on family reunification and resettlement and that we have restored health care for refugees and provided the services that they need.

My hon. colleague also mentioned a program to settle women and girls from other conflict areas. There are many parts of the world where women and girls are in terrible situations. I wonder if my hon. colleague could elaborate on that particular program.

[Matt DeCourcey]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Ottawa area is certainly a leading voice in this Parliament when it comes to human rights matters, domestically and internationally. I know she is actively engaged in conversations about how Canada can provide opportunities for safety and security for those fleeing war, persecution, and all kinds of other horrors.

Our effort to resettle an additional 1,000 vulnerable women and girls came through a commitment made in budget 2018, which is in line with the work that Canada is leading on globally to help develop a compact for safe, orderly and regular migration and a compact on refugees. We ensured that language and an understanding were inserted into those compacts so that we could build capacity around the world to better understand the situations facing vulnerable women and girls, many of whom are fleeing gang violence and gender-based violence in all areas of the world. We know there are situations in Latin America as well as in the Middle East and other regions, such as the Rohingya refugees situation.

We are going to do our best to ensure that we can provide safe refuge to the most vulnerable. We know we have a particular responsibility when it comes to helping ourselves and the world to better understand the particular vulnerabilities and challenges faced by women and girls in refugee situations. We will do our part as the global leader in resettlement to make sure that women and girls who find themselves in horrific situations are able to come here and build a life in Canada for themselves.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the parliamentary secretary a question that has come up in my meetings with some Yazidi people in Winnipeg, particularly. It is the situation of private sponsorship, where people have not been able to come up with occupations for a few of the folks who are there. There is a requirement for some support in the area of food for some of the people who are living in that area right now.

I wonder if perhaps the parliamentary secretary was aware of that. Perhaps we could talk offline or he could answer the question directly now for me. Is there something that would help resettle more of these folks in a manner that we would be accustomed to here in Canada?

[Matt DeCourcey]

Mr. Speaker, I am always willing to talk offline with my hon. colleague from Brandon—Souris. There is always more that we can do to help those who are coming to Canada. We will always endeavour to do so. That is why we are playing a global leadership role on the issues of refugee protection and safe refuge, as well as on the global trends of migration.

I will remind my hon. colleague that Canada is now the global leader in resettlement, and that we have almost quadrupled our privately sponsored spaces in Canada. That includes spaces for Yazidi women and girls, and all vulnerable persons from around the world.

I know my hon. colleague does not do this often, but some of his colleagues on the Conservative benches call for us to do more for vulnerable women and girls, while at the same time they slander Canada's leadership in helping to develop and sign a global compact that will help us take a leadership role in ensuring that the most vulnerable women and girls around the world can be resettled in Canada or find safe refuge in other areas around the world.

I am happy to talk with him offline around his genuine request. However, I would also ask him to go back into the back lobby and ask his Conservative colleagues to clearly state where they stand. Do they want Canada to play a leadership role when it comes to refugee protection, or do they want us to walk away from the table and have no say in how the global community deals with growing trends of migration globally or refugees who we see more of than at any other point since World War II?

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his very informative speech. We know that all refugees have come from horrific circumstances, but Yazidi women and girls have survived the sexual slavery of Daesh, which is a particularly difficult journey that they have made. When they arrive in Canada, I understand that we have customized approaches and specialized services that we provide.

I was wondering if the parliamentary secretary would like to speak to that.

[Matt DeCourcey]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who is playing an important role in this global conversation about how we better support vulnerable women and girls globally through his leadership on the women, peace and security file, a file that really envelopes both global diplomacy, international co-operation through development and humanitarian assistance, and Canada's world-leading refugee resettlement program.

On the specific question he asked about the particular services that we provide for Yazidis who are here in Canada, I have to remind people in this place that it was the government that reinstituted the interim federal health program that, for Yazidi women and girls, is ensuring that they are beneficiaries of particularized mental health supports through allied health professionals, psychosocial experts, counselling, mental health hospitals and a whole range of services that would not have been available to them prior to our election to government.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks I would like to personally thank my friend and colleague the member for Calgary Nose Hill for her dedication to immigration as the shadow cabinet minister for citizenship and immigration. Through her tireless efforts, she has put the plight of Yazidi people front and centre. She has taken the Liberal government to task and has held it accountable. Just this past summer in Manitoba we met with Yazidi refugees. It was a very moving experience to hear first-hand the torture, pain and agony inflicted upon them by the terrorist death cult ISIS. They reminded us that there is still much work to do.

Before I speak about the report, it is important to understand how we got here. The Yazidis are a Kurdish religious minority who live in Iraq, Syria, the Caucasus region and some parts of Turkey and Iran. Their religion is a branch of Zoroastrianism and has adopted some practices from Islam and Christianity.

In August of 2014, ISIS launched an attack across the Sinjar region in northern Iraq. The area is primarily inhabited by the Yazidi people, a long-established ethnic and religious minority group condemned by ISIS because of their beliefs. The atrocities reported from the region included the removal and murder of Yazidi men, the sexual slavery of Yazidi women and girls and the incorporation of Yazidi boys into ISIS fighting groups. It is estimated that around 10,000 Yazidis were either killed or captured in August of 2014 alone, out of which 3,100 were murdered by gunshots, beheaded or burned alive.

Under the previous Conservative government, we took real action to fight ISIS by conducting Operation Impact, allowing for our CF-18 fighter jets to bomb ISIS. In 2016, our Conservative opposition moved a motion to hold summer meetings of the immigration committee to study immigration measures for the protection of the world's most vulnerable. The study included a heavy focus on Yazidi genocide survivors and the need for Canada to respond. In October of 2016, my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill put forward a motion to resettle Yazidi genocide survivors in Canada, and that was passed in the House.

In this debate, I want to highlight some specific areas that the Government of Canada must improve to ensure that Yazidi survivors can succeed and flourish in Canada. The committee report we are debating today was born out of a study by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that was looking at how well Canada was integrating the small number of Yazidis who were resettled in Canada.

The resettling of Yazidi women and children in Canada is the first step to rebuilding their lives. However, a number of critical support services, such as better access to mental health support and interpretation services, are needed in order to fully integrate. The road to recovery for survivors of genocide also includes reuniting them with family members who were left behind.

The report provides a number of recommendations based on the issues heard during the course of the study. Among these, the committee highlighted the importance of facilitating the private sponsorship of Yazidi women and children, developing a best practices guide on resettlement and integration of vulnerable groups, as well as anticipating linguistic capacity needs in order to provide professional interpretation to newcomers in their mother language.

However, the committee noted that resettlement issues are not the only solution to the violent displacement endured by the Yazidi people. Stabilizing the Sinjar region and creating a favourable environment for those wishing to return is also part of rebuilding the lives of Yazidis. The report found that there appears to be a patchwork of services for Yazidis across the country, and non-governmental agencies are expected to draft their own specialized programs.

The committee report also found that there is a lack of psychological and mental health resources to help remove the stigma of sexual assault and mental health treatment. There is a lack of translation services specifically for Yazidis. As a result, immigration societies are now calling on the government to bring over not only spouses and dependent children of refugees, but also extended family members.

At this time I would like to go over some specific areas of the report and what our Conservative caucus is calling for, six in particular.

First, family reunification of Yazidis is imperative to their integration and justice. There are many survivors of the Yazidi genocide and newly rescued sex slaves who are only now able to leave the Islamic state and it is necessary to recognize the exceptional nature of their situation. We have continuously heard of Yazidi refugees who have been resettled to Canada, yet are still facing troubles reuniting with their family members who have been found alive. The government must prioritize this for survivors instead of using resources to reach out to known terrorists seeking to come to Canada.

Many already have family in Canada now and others are unable to return home to northern Iraq due to the instability of the region with no local durable solutions. They should be prioritized in Canada's refugee resettlement along with the prolonged ability for Yazidis to sponsor family to Canada. Family reunification is a key area of concern for all refugees resettled in Canada, but we heard that Yazidi families have unique issues when trying to sponsor family.

For example, family members are often undeclared on documentation given to IRCC because they were presumed dead or disappeared. Under current regulations, those family members cannot be included under the one-year window program even if they are located within the first year in Canada.

COSTI stated, “...it is not unusual for missing family members to be located after the One Year Window provision has passed, leaving few avenues for resettlement other than submitting a Humanitarian and Compassionate claim, which not only costs money to apply but also requires a lawyer to complete the application.”

Last, for extended family members still living in their home country such as Iraq and Syria, there exists no mechanism to resettle refugees who are internally displaced other than family-class sponsorship, which has inherent barriers for refugees.

UNHCR and the refugee sponsorship training program have confirmed that without official refugee documents, it is not possible to recommend Yazidi extended family members for resettlement in Canada. Needless to say, the stress of being disconnected from family overseas, especially when those family members continue to be in precarious situations, contributes to poorer health and settlement outcomes and makes it much more difficult for refugee newcomers to focus on the task of integrating into Canadian society. This challenge in terms of reunification of Yazidi families should be addressed immediately by the government.

Second, Canada must support the return of refugees to their ancestral territory in northern Iraq. More than a year after the defeat of ISIS in Iraq, 1.9 million Iraqis remain displaced internally, including Yazidis, Christians, Muslim minority groups and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups.

Many of them have suffered human rights violations that the United Nations has found amount to acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. With the Dohuk-Sinjar road completely closed for almost one year, this has prevented Yazidis desiring to return home from the camps to rebuild their lives in Sinjar.

There have also been other measures implemented to prevent Yazidis from transporting materials needed for the reconstruction of their homes and farms, measures that exacerbated emigration from the country and seriously endanger the future survival of minorities within Iraq.

Given that Yazidis are being prevented from returning to their ancestral territory, Canada should be advocating for the establishment of a body to regularly report to the public on the progress that has been made and the obstacles that have been encountered with the return of ethnic and religious minorities to their places of origin in northern Iraq.

Third, Canada must support Nadia Murad's international criminal court case. Yazidis and other ISIS victims want justice in a court of law and they deserve nothing less. We cannot stand idly by and allow impunity for genocide and other crimes ISIS is committing in Iraq and around the world. The International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction in Iraq, but the Security Council can override that and refer the conflict in Iraq to the court. Canada should be using its position in the world to advocate for Nadia Murad's court case to go through.

Fourth, “never again” means bringing justice to the perpetrators of genocide. To borrow a phrase from the parliamentary secretary in his speech tonight, “Let me remind this House” that Yazidis who have suffered genocide at the hands of ISIS deserve true justice. It is not enough to recognize genocide for what it is. Action to protect and serve justice is essential. “Never again” means taking action to prevent and stop genocide.

Canadians deserve a government that will not hesitate to take a principled stand against those who commit the worst crimes against humanity. To truly say “never again” and mean it, means seeking justice for survivors. Survivors of ISIS and its atrocities should know the perpetrators are being prosecuted the full extent of the law, not simply reintegrated into Canadian society.

Fifth, a Conservative government would take strong action to bring ISIS terrorists to justice. We would acknowledge the vast majority of Canadians understand that if an individual travels abroad and commits genocidal or terrorist acts, he or she should face the consequences of the laws of foreign countries as well as international law. A Conservative government would clearly uphold this principle. We would focus first on bringing the perpetrators of genocide and terrorist acts to justice.

We would strive to keep Canadians safe from those who would be suspected of committing acts of terrorism or genocide abroad but have returned to Canada, by ensuring security agencies would be adequately resourced to provide high levels of monitoring and surveillance of their activities in Canada. We would encourage greater use of tools to place conditions on those suspected of terrorist or genocidal activities, such as peace bonds, which can include conditions such as wearing an electronic monitoring device, returning to and remaining at their place of residence at specified times and controlling social media use. The Liberals are making it harder for security officials to monitor suspected terrorists by changing the rules around peace bonds.

We would examine ways as well to reform the criminal justice system to ensure courts would have access to evidence gathered against suspected terrorists. We know the process to bring perpetrators of atrocity crimes to justice is slow, fails victims and prevents them from returning home. A Conservative government would ensure Canada would lead global initiatives to reform and strengthen them.

We would support initiatives which would take concrete action to bring justice and treatment to women whose bodies, through rape, have been used as a weapon of war. We would recognize that ISIS committed atrocity crimes against many different ethnic and religious minority groups, including the Yazidi, Iraqi Christians, Coptic Christians and minority Shia Muslim groups.

We would provide support for the investigators and prosecutors of ISIS terrorists, mandated through UN Security Council resolution 2379, to support domestic efforts to hold ISIS accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Finally, we would take action to uphold the unanimous decision of Parliament to comply with a Conservative motion to bring justice to the victims of the Yazidi genocide.

Sixth, the Liberals have failed to keep their commitment to Yazidis. When the Liberal government voted unanimously to support Yazidi genocide survivors, we expected the Liberals to make good on this commitment and provide the necessary services to ensure their successful integration into Canada's social and economic fabric. Unfortunately, last year we learned that despite only resettling a small number of genocide survivors, only five Yazidi women received government provided mental health services. To add insult to injury, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship cut the amount of money set aside to provide this support.

The initiative to help resettle Yazidis was borne out of a realization that Yazidis could not make it onto UNHCR refugee lists. On top of failing to provide the necessary mental health services, the Liberal government has made no structural changes to Canada's refugee selection process to prevent a similar situation from happening in the future.

Yazidis have faced many injustices, except this time it is at the hands of the Liberal government. The Conservative Party calls on the Liberals to immediately fulfill the spirit of the motion they supported last year. Yazidis should have access to mental health services, language training, integration supports, connections to the existing community in Canada and that our refugee system be re-evaluated to prevent future tragedy.

I want to highlight Nadia Murad, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018. Nadia was abducted and forced into slavery in 2014. After fleeing her brutal captors, she courageously shared her story and became a relentless advocate for the Yazidi women and girls still suffering in ISIS captivity. Named a UN goodwill ambassador at the age of 23, Nadia has travelled the world raising awareness of ISIS's horrifying crimes, calling for justice and action to help Yazidis displaced and brutalized by the inhumane actions of this terrorist group.

Nadia has brought her campaign to Canada several times and the Conservatives have been proud to stand with her in demanding action from the Canadian government. With her support and that of the Yazidi community in Canada, the Conservatives have succeeded in pressuring the government to recognize the Yazidi genocide and resettle some survivors in Canada.

It is my hope and desire for the government to take our recommendations seriously. I urge it to enact them immediately.

[Matt DeCourcey, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, I have three questions for my hon. colleague across the way.

I will preface the first one by saying that the global community really became aware of the horrors that the Yazidi people underwent after the 2014 Sinjar genocide. Did the member for Calgary Nose Hill demand her government take action to bring vulnerable Yazidi women to Canada at that time?

Second, why did every single Conservative stand in the House in a recorded standing vote and vote against important resettlement dollars for Yazidi women and girls in Canada?

Third, if the Conservatives are truly genuine about their commitment to resettling vulnerable women and girls across Canada, why are they joining the People's Party of Canada in condemning the leadership role that Canada is playing on two global compacts that deal with these very issues?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out in my speech, the whole atrocity started in 2014. The government is very aware of the fact that it has not adopted some of the processes that were needed in the recommendations to move forward. It has acted on some. However, I know my colleague is responsible for these Yazidi women being brought to Canada. The Liberals make the case that they brought them in.

When Conservatives brought this before the House, only five or six women from the Yazidi population had entered Canada until my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill brought this to the attention of the committee and it accepted to discuss this whole process. The Yazidi people in Canada know that it was my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill who is responsible for them being in Canada today. We forced the government to fulfill the needs of 1,250 Yazidi persons, who were being persecuted, to come to Canada in the first place.

I need not take any lessons from my colleague about a leadership role, because the Liberals need to take a leadership role in some of these activities. They need to look at who is being persecuted around the world. They need to continue to look at how they can be prioritized in bringing them to Canada.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there were many issues raised with respect to the issue of the Yazidis community and their resettlement. One of the issues that I consistently hear from the Yazidis community members, as well as refugees as a whole, is that they would like to see additional family members be allowed to come to Canada. To that end, they asked the government to lift the private sponsorship cap on refugees to allow for more refugees to come to Canada. They also asked the government to expand the definition of the “nuclear family” to include aunts, uncles and so on, many of whom could not join their loved ones in a safe place in Canada.

Would the member support those kinds of recommendations that came from the witnesses at committee? Is that something on which he would call on the Liberal government to act?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Vancouver East for the work she has done on the immigration and citizenship committee as well.

We heard from witnesses who wanted to see the cap raised on the private sponsorship of refugees. That was one of the things we were looking at the government to take the lead on to ensure we adopted some of these opportunities. We heard that very clearly, and I have been made very aware of this. As we continue to develop our policy from our side of the House with respect to this process, that it is one of the things at which we would certainly look.

The definition of the “nuclear family” is also something we need to take into consideration. Many times we heard in testimony, particularly from some of the Yazidi women who were before our committee, that they needed to have more than just immediate family members come to Canada. In many cases, all of the men in those populations have been killed by the ISIS terrorist group. That leaves the women and daughters, many of whom have gone through horrendous atrocities as well in their personal lives, before they were fortunate enough to be among the 1,200 who were able to come to Canada.

Therefore, I am certainly aware that in many cases none of these women, girls, young ladies and children have any male relatives left. In one case, a person who came to testify only had an uncle who was still alive as far as that person knew. That is why we are so readily looking at ensuring there is an opportunity to identify those who are outside the window of the one-year program and allowing them to come to Canada if they are found to be a survivor. Many of them, even their own relatives, have been thought to be killed during the atrocities that took place before these people were accepted to come to Canada as refugees.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member was describing some of the fallacies and shortcomings of the government's response initially. As we all remember, the member for Calgary Nose Hill moved a motion in the House to ensure Yazidis would be able to come to Canada. I have met a lot Kurdish Canadians, Canadians of Kurdish heritage, who have come to Canada over the past 10, 20, 30 years. They were shocked at the treatment people were receiving in the region and to learn that the Government of Canada was dragging its feet with respect to helping those most in need.

The member talked a bit about the religious minorities in northern Iraq, Syrian Christians, Chaldeans, Yazidis and the Yarsanis from Iran. Could he talk a little more about what Canada should be doing to help not only these religious minorities, but also the ethnic minority groups in northern Iraq and eastern Syria that still desperately need help, the most needy of the need? Could he also talk about some of the other Government of Canada's shortfalls with respect to helping the neediest of the needy?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the work he has done on these areas as well. I mentioned a few of them earlier in the presentation. Among them of course are resettlement and the opportunities to free up northern Iraq so that many of these people can go back to their own regions, and the actions that Canada took forcefully in those areas to try to help defeat the ISIS regime in the first place.

Having said that, we know that there are 1,250 Yazidi women and girls who have come to Canada and that when they get here, they are sometimes still very traumatized.

They may not have the best handle yet on the English language to be able to understand what is being asked of them. One of the areas that we strongly need help in is translation, which I mentioned in my speech. We need much more translation in the Kurdish language for them to be able to understand what kind of help they are receiving here in Canada.

We need housing in those areas as well. In the case of some of my friends in Winnipeg, we need some realignment of some funds that were being directed to other areas. Those funds could be used to help with daily food supplies in this particular area. There are not many, but there are some smaller groups who do need help in that regard as well. I do not want to exaggerate it, but there is a need in that area.

I also want to say that besides the translation services and housing, we need to make sure that that these people have an opportunity to reunify with some of their family members, as we just pointed out in the previous question.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would support advocating that the government provide ongoing mental health support for the Yazidi victims, and particularly those who have suffered the kinds of traumas that he mentioned in his speech.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

The answer is yes, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate my colleague from Vancouver East raising this question again, because it is also one of the things that my colleague from Calgary raised, and I did not mention how Canada could help. This area of mental health very much needs to be addressed in the whole issue of reconciliation here, and citizenship in Canada as well.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on this concurrence motion regarding the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration tabled in the House of Commons.

What are we talking about? We are talking about a group of victims, people who have faced genocide, who are seeking assistance and safety from the international community. This call for action has been ongoing for some time. Finally, in this House, in this very chamber, every single member unanimously recognized that genocide of the Yazidi community was taking place. From there, a study was undertaken by the House of Commons.

Witnesses who came to committee expressed their point of view and called urgently on the government to take action, particularly to help resettle the women and girls who have faced sexual violence and to allow them to come to a safe place.

This took some time, I must admit. Through that discussion, the government made a commitment that it would settle 1,200 Yazidi women and girl survivors in Canada. That was meant to be a special measure. Ultimately, the government did no such thing. It did not take that special measure. In fact, what it did was to identify Yazidis within the existing numbers of refugees it was accepting under its Syrian refugee initiative, and then double-counted them as Yazidi survivors who had come to Canada.

I cannot tell the House how dismayed I was. It is not a numbers game per se, except when it matters and people's lives are at stake. That is what we were talking about. Every single member in this chamber acknowledged that there was a genocide under way and that we needed to act urgently.

The government did not do what I had hoped and thought it was committed to doing, which was to bring in and resettle as a special measure 1,200 Yazidi women and girls. It did no such thing. I was so dismayed and disappointed with that outcome.

That said, Yazidi women and girls, under the Syrian refugee initiative, came to Canada, and some of them were resettled here. I want to share with the House that not very long ago, back in October, I held a press conference in the press gallery here in the House of Commons. With me were a number of women, one of whom was a survivor. In fact, she was one of the first women who was resettled here under that initiative.

Her name was Adiba. She was a Yazidi woman who was in ISIS captivity, and who was sold roughly six times over the course of the year by different male captors. She arrived in Canada in 2016. She was still dealing with the psychological damage of sexual violence. Her experiences were a prime example of how Yazidi women have struggled in Canada due to a whole variety of persecutions and misunderstandings.

Several months after arriving, Adiba had a breakdown at her home. She was taken to MacKenzie hospital in Ontario. The support network, the community members with her at the time, remember rushing to the hospital after calls for help. When her support network arrived, they were horrified to find Adiba being restrained on a bed, surrounded by male security guards. They had tied Adiba's hands and feet to the bed. Each hand was tied, each leg was tied, and there were men all around her. That was exactly what ISIS used to do to her, before they raped her. Imagine the trauma she had to re-experience in that situation.

Adiba was one of the victims. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria had persecuted Yazidis and minority religious sects mostly in northern Iraq. Adiba was 27 at the time. She fled her home in Sinjar District in northern Iraq after the Islamic State militants massacred Yazidi villages and captured women as sex slaves. She also advised us that some of her family members were among the estimated 10,000 Yazidis killed in the genocide. Her parents and her brother are still living in a camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. She is not using her last name out of fear for their safety.

She was living in a refugee camp when she learned that the Canadian government would sponsor Yazidi women to move to Canada. As one of the first of the groups to arrive, she spent her first few nights scared and alone in a hotel in Toronto, until a non-profit organization came forward to offer her help. She was dropped off at the Radisson Hotel not far from here, and stayed in the lobby hungry and thirsty, but with no language she could understand or use in order to obtain some water. That is what her direct experience was. That is what she advised us of during the press conference right here in Ottawa.

I ask, how is this possible? When we raised this issue and studied it, we learned from our German counterparts who gave us advice from how they had helped resettle Yazidi victims. But still, when we resettled the Yazidi women and victims here, this happened. How is it even possible, I have to wonder? Yet, it did happen.

Therefore, the question was raised, what is the government doing, now that it knows about the lack of psychological and mental health support for the victims? What is it doing for these women who have experienced this extreme trauma to get them the support they need? The government promised that additional resources would targeted for this group, yet it did not materialize. At the end, the government says that there is the interim federal health program, and so just go to that. However, there are no psychologists with the language capacity to provide that help. Some of these women do not even know where to seek it. Where is the on-the-ground support for the women, the survivors, who came here and that Canada agreed to resettle? It was nowhere to be found.

We learned at committee that there were some Yazidi families who were relocated in a part of Canada where they were supposed to have a network of support, where there would be other Yazidi members to support them, only to learn that there were none. It did not happen. They literally just got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, from their perspective, because they are not familiar with Canada at all. They were just left there to fend for themselves. How is it possible for that to have happened? I was so dismayed to learn of that.

The government says that it will do everything it can. Now, to the Liberals' credit, in the levels plan, they have now put forward a special measure to resettle Yazidi men and women. I am glad to see that. We advocated long and hard for the government to do that, and it did appear in this levels plan.

Having said that, there were several other recommendations that witnesses at the committee put forward for the government to consider, which were vital for them, for their mental health and well-being and survival as a community. Yet, no action has been taken.

What are some of those basic recommendations they were calling for?

More than anything else, they wanted to be reunited with their family members, with their loved ones, like we all do. We all want our loved ones around us. We want to know that they are safe and to be in the warmth of their arms. For people who have gone through genocide, I cannot imagine how much they would want that. Witnesses came forward and said that they wanted the government to allow their nuclear family members to be able to come to Canada as refugees as well.

In western society, we define our family members differently. Our spouse, children and parents tend to be those whom we define as within our nuclear family. However, for many communities, mine included, our definition of family is much larger. We consider our aunts, uncles and cousins to be immediate family. For example, I live with my sister and her children, her one son and one daughter. My nephew and niece are like my children. They are like my children's siblings. They are like their brothers and sisters. We define ourselves as a clan. We literally are just one giant clan in one house.

That is how many of the refugees define their families too. The Yazidi women who were able to be resettled here in Canada have left loved ones behind, uncles, aunts, cousins and others, but there is no path forward for them to come to Canada. Why is that? Witnesses came forward and asked us to please understand the broader definition of a nuclear family and to allow that definition for genocide survivors. That recommendation was rejected by the Liberal members at committee. I asked them why they would reject something as basic as helping families come together so they can bring their loved ones here.

Another committee recommendation was rejected by the Liberal members, and I do not understand why they would do that either. Some of the Yazidis who have survived this horrific genocide were able to come to Canada, but unbeknownst to them, they have a surviving member of their family back at the camp or somewhere. Someone told them they have a surviving family member, yet because of our rules, our immigration policies, unless they make an application within one year of their arrival here in Canada, which is known as the one-year window of opportunity program, under that stream, they will miss the chance to bring those other family members here. They are part of their nuclear family. It could be a son or a daughter, but unless they make that application within one year, they will have missed their opportunity to bring them here. How is that even logical?

These individuals do not even know they have a surviving family member. They thought the family member had been killed, only to discover later, past the deadline, that the family member was still alive but they would have a tough time bringing the person here. They have to go through a whole process of appealing to the minister for intervention. All kinds of things have to take place.

In fact, I assisted one family in such a situation. The woman did not know that her son, her little boy, had survived the situation. She found out through social media. A picture of him showed up and someone told her. She almost collapsed at the sight of him. A whole movement happened to help bring her son here. We had to go through a special application process to get the minister to provide an intervention and so on. After much to do, it happened, and he was brought here.

Why would we not just make it simpler for everyone and just allow for those individuals to be reunited, recognize right from the outset and extend the one-year window of opportunity restriction in terms of timeline, to allow for all of those family members to bring their loved ones here.

Those are basic questions. I wonder why we are even here debating it. As human beings, as people who are connected, as a compassionate country of people who want to see humanitarian action taken, why do we not do these things?

The Liberal members at committee rejected those recommendations. I wrote a supplementary report and brought it forward. It is not like the government members do not know about it. It is not like the minister does not know about it. The parliamentary secretary gloats and claims how swell the Liberals have been on this file. They should take some action and make a difference. They should adopt those recommendations and make that change. They have it within their power to do that right now, right here in this chamber. I challenge them to step up and undertake that effort, because it will make a difference in the lives of people in a very significant way.

It will also save resources which could be spent elsewhere within the immigration file. We could put those resources toward ensuring that an asylum claimant, for example, who is fleeing the Trump administration which rejects women who are facing domestic violence, rejects people who are faced with gang violence and are trying to seek refuge, rejects people from the LGBTQ2I community who the Trump administration seems to think are born with the sexual identity to which their gender has been identified.

Why are we making people jump through hoops for no good reason? We can reinvest those resources in other places to make a difference. Those are the kinds of things that we as parliamentarians can do. Those are the kinds of things that I dream of being in government to be able to do, to remove barriers, cut the red tape and make a difference in the lives of people. That is the privilege we have.

I have been elected for 25 years now. I was taught something by a former lieutenant governor in British Columbia, the late Dr. David Lam. He said that it is not the title that brings you honour, but it is what you do with the title that you honour it. All of us have the opportunity to make a difference.

When we are talking about genocide, today in the House of Commons I tried to get unanimous consent to move a motion to call on every single member of the House to recognize December 13 as the Nanjing massacre commemorative day. Eighty-one years ago, some 300,000 people were killed. Some 200,000 women from Japanese-occupied territories in Asia were brought into sexual slavery. We have lessons to learn from history and to commemorate it would mean that we learned those lessons and we could apply them today.

It would mean that for the Yazidi women who are faced with sexual slavery, with sexual violence, we collectively can act on that and do something about it. The UN currently recognizes some 19 countries see sexual violence as a tactic of war. What is wrong with that picture? Why did I not receive unanimous consent? From what I understand, it was a Liberal member who rejected it to begin with. Why would that happen? When we work across partisan lines on issues like this to commemorate a situation of such magnitude, of crimes against humanity, of such atrocities, we have the power to unite our voice and strength to make a difference in the global context to try to save lives, to bring peace forward as the middle power country that we are. We worked so hard to earn a reputation as a peace-loving people so that we can assert ourselves in the international community to drive a difference.

Unanimous consent was denied. I hope that is not the end of it and that we can come back and apply those lessons from history to today's context. Whether it be the Yazidi community or Myanmar, people who are faced with those kinds of situations, with sexual violence being used as a military tactic, let us take action. Let us not just talk about it. Let us not just debate it. Let us make those policy changes and make it happen.

We can help resettle, provide aid, and we can assert ourselves in the international arena to broker change, to bring allies in other countries on board to make that difference. I think we have the power to do that. That is why I am so honoured to be a parliamentarian with all the members in the House. Let us work together to make that difference, shall we?

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the aisle for the passion and dedication she brings to these issues and to this file.

She spoke of the differences in cultural understanding of what a nuclear family is. That is a very important topic for discussion and hopefully it will be a topic that will continue to be looked at.

However, I would like to zero in on something a little more particular to the Yazidi file. The Yazidis, as was mentioned, are survivors of a genocide. In and of its nature, that means those survivors are the few. Their immediate family members most likely did not survive. They may have more distant family members who also are among those few who survived, and that is why it is such a precious thing for them when they do see a family member, perhaps in a video of a refugee camp.

Was there any discussion in the committee, and does the member think that perhaps in the future there should be a discussion, around that very particular issue of the survivors of genocide and the refugees who are survivors of genocide, that perhaps we should have a broader approach when it comes to family reunification?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is the former chair of the committee, and I also appreciate his work because he earnestly tried to make a difference at that committee. He actually reminded the committee members at one point that we may never make it back to that table again and so for the moment, the here and now, it was our chance to make that difference and to speak up and speak out and not just toe the party line. That was his advice and I very much appreciated that.

That said, to his specific question about the nuclear family and, more important, the definition of how some communities define it differently, for genocide survivors there is no question that those family members, however they are related, are precious to them. In fact, at the committee there was fulsome discussion about that. Witness after witness recommended that change to the committee, yet we do not see that action from the government. That is what I am dismayed about.

It is not like we do not know what needs to be done, but the government has failed to act on it. Right now, the Liberals could make that difference by making that change. Literally with the stroke of a pen, they could make that change and allow for those family members to come to Canada under family reunification.