It’s been a year since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, but today many Afghans are still desperate to leave — including those who helped the Canadian government and military.
Despite the federal government’s pledge to resettle 40,000 Afghans, officials can only say they have resettled more than 17,300 refugees so far.
Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser spoke to As It Happens guest Susan Bonner from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. The following is part of their conversation.
What’s going on, Minister? What’s taking so long? People’s lives are at stake here.
What’s taking so long is largely because a significant number of the people we were hoping to bring to Canada are in an area controlled by the Taliban — a listed terrorist entity under Canadian law that has no interest in helping people who are being persecuted arrive in another country willing to offer them a safe haven.
There are more than 8,000 people who are on track to get approval to come to Canada and are still in Afghanistan. Unlike other refugee resettlement initiatives, we do not have access to these people with a presence on the ground. There is no centralized management effort by the United Nations to process these people.
So you have resettled more than 17,000 Afghan refugees since last year. Meanwhile, more than 70,000 Ukrainians have come to Canada in 2022, so far alone.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan said a stark difference between the government’s treatment of those two groups is not right. How do you explain the discrepancy?
When we deal with people who come to Canada as refugees from Afghanistan, we know that they are coming here permanently. And we know that by and large, many of them can’t get here on their own.
The reason you’re seeing much larger numbers of Ukrainians coming is because we’ve created a pathway that brings them here on a temporary basis as, essentially, visitors to Canada. We designed this program out of necessity because it was the fastest and most powerful way to create a path to reach large numbers of people. But we do not face the same challenges in securing safe passage from a third country.
So the two situations simply cannot be compared based on numbers, particularly when a group has access to commercial aircraft and can arrive in Canada of their own volition, as opposed to a group that is to be resettled permanently and must be chartered here and potentially moving out of a country we don’t currently have access to since the Taliban have taken control.
Taliban fighters fire into the air as they break up a rare gathering of women chanting “Bread, work and freedom”, days before the first anniversary of the hardline group’s return to power. Canada promised to take in 40,000 refugees, but has so far taken in only about 17,300. (Nava Jamshidi/Getty Images)
Brian McDonald is the head of a group of veterans who actually actively help people escape from Afghanistan. He says, as you point out, there are thousands of Afghans who have been approved and are stuck for reasons you’ve described. But he also says there are thousands more waiting for answers from the Canadian government.
What do you say to him and those Afghans that we heard that some of them can’t get through the Canadian bureaucracy to get a response?
What I would say to Brian and say to Brian is thank you.
The challenges that people face when it comes to dealing with the processes that are internal to government are very dramatically based on their individual circumstances. And sometimes these challenges are not led by IRCC [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada]but transactions with third countries.
There are quite a number of people who have faced difficulties in third countries before – for example, Pakistan – where they had come out of Afghanistan but perhaps did not have the appropriate legal status in Pakistan and were not allowed to leave without a valid travel document.
Again, this would put people in a position where they would have to approach the Taliban, their persecutor, in order to prove that they had permission to come through Pakistan from Canada.
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There are 18,000 places available through the Special Immigration Measures Program, and this is for Afghans and their families who have helped the Canadian government or the Canadian military. But you are no longer getting new referrals for this program. Why not?
There are 18,000 places set aside for this program, but in addition, there are 5,000 more places for the extended family members of people who have resettled here in the past.
So far we have issued approximately just over 15,000 invitations to apply to people who may be eligible for these programs. We continue to release remaining spaces in installments to ensure we reflect unforeseen family sizes, recognizing that not everyone who receives one of these invitations accepts the invitation and goes through the application process to come to Canada.
In addition, some of the individuals eligible for Canada’s programs also served with other partner nations involved in Afghanistan and may have qualified for some of these other programs. They may also be eligible for private sponsorship in Canada through the spaces we have made available through these avenues or through other avenues based on their status as a human rights defender or referral based on their vulnerability.
Why should I have a cap?
It’s very important when you’re dealing with people who are going to come to resettle as permanent residents that we plan not just to get them here, but to make them well. We continue to work with the settlement sector to make sure that we provide them with the resources they need to do well and to ensure that we can move this effort forward in an organized way that can be managed effectively.
What do you say to people who would say that it sounds good to want to set people up for success — but some of those people are just hoping to survive?
I would say we try to do everything we can to help them and move them as quickly as possible.
One of the things that I don’t think people fully appreciate is how difficult it has become to resettle refugees in the last couple of years. A lot of the global infrastructure for things like the referral process through the United Nations, through our major partners who have historically done great humanitarian action in response to refugee initiatives like the United States, have really destroyed their resettlement infrastructure in recent years.
We will continue to do everything we can to help those people who are simply trying to survive because of persecution by the Taliban or because they have made a significant contribution to Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan.
Written by Stephanie Hogan. Interview produced by Morgan Passi. The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
