Foreign Affairs committee  I tend to agree. I don't have exact numbers, but I would say that we are not reaching out to all communities and all groups. There is still a tremendous need that can only be achieved by having more partners on the ground and more organizations responding, because each organiza

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, we definitely take care of that. We ensure that the cultural values or the religious values are not impacted. In the orthodox societies where women would like to stay separate, whenever we provide shelters, we either provide for a family unit at the shelter or have a separat

Foreign Affairs committee  I could go first. It is true that in Pakistan there is racial, religious and ethnic turmoil, where people are against one another. You just mentioned the edict about attacking pregnant women—Ahmadi women—and this is a very sad situation. Another incident was that there were so

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not aware of it at all.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would add that we have tried to keep a low profile just to avoid any political impact on our responses. We have worked with local partners and local government agencies, who have been helpful, but in Pakistan, because of the volatile situation, there have been risks to our volu

Foreign Affairs committee  We are in the very early phase of assessment right now. We have not identified any particular area, but the two target areas where we will be building these homes are Sindh and the southern Punjab, where, in some villages, the houses were completely destroyed. We were primarily p

Foreign Affairs committee  I totally agree with the idea of having a pre-vetted organization, but sadly, pre-vetted organizations are not considered. For example, Humanity First was pre-vetted. We were a partner organization. We have a proven track record, and we received funding for the response in the Ph

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Good evening, Mr. Chair and committee members. I will not go into describing the situation in Pakistan. Previous speakers have covered that and, in the previous session, details and statistics were given. I will introduce Humanity First. It is an internati

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As a private sponsorship agreement holder, and being involved in private sponsorship, I will say that a cap is a big challenge for us. On the other hand, I also understand the issue of challenges of the landing, and that there has to be enough resources. The solution is not in p

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. As a private sponsorship program, we are deeply involved with the sponsorship process. We know the refugees. We do the due diligence, and we are able to select the most vulnerable and the most needy, and also those who are connected in Canada. In that way, we are doi

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sponsorship breakdown is uncommon in the SAH community. The reason is that either they're family linked, or the organizations are already well placed to do the sponsorship. It would be a rare thing to see a sponsorship breakdown. It would happen only because of certain specific c

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The biggest challenge is to find employment for them. What we recommend is that there should be a program. When we are taking refugees, we are opening our hearts. There should be some type of model where we provide a three-month, a six-month, or a one-year program, which is fund

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. We had only three or four individuals with special medical needs. One of them was permanently disabled and had some medical conditions for which he needed urgent care. We were able to provide that through IFH, plus through our panel of doctors. There were a couple of others

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The professionals, for example, engineers and doctors, we have a couple of engineers who have come, and they're struggling to find a job when Canadian experience is lacking. I think it would help to have a program where they're invited to have a mentorship with an organization, o

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay.