A year after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, voices are rising to urge the Canadian government to step up to full speed in welcoming Afghan refugees, while Ottawa is lagging behind about the goals he has set himself.
Just over 17,300 Afghans have arrived in Canada since last August out of the 40,000 that Justin Trudeau’s government has promised to resettle.
Aman Lara, a non-profit organization helping Afghans find refuge in Canada, estimates that there are around 8,000 Afghans who have been granted permission to enter the country through a special immigration program to people who have helped the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) or who have worked for the Canadian Embassy in Afghanistan. However, these Afghans with travel approval are unable to surrender, the NGO said.
The organization’s executive director, Brian Macdonald, said in an interview that another 3,000 Afghans who collaborated with Canada are still waiting for an answer from Ottawa.
A former Afghan interpreter with the CAF said he was in that situation Monday during a news conference with NDP MPs urging Ottawa to do more to respond to the crisis. The latter, whose identity is protected so as not to jeopardize his safety, underlined the urgency of the situation. “It’s a matter of life and death,” he said, adding that the Taliban have issued an arrest warrant for him.
He said he submitted his file to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) a year ago and since then has only received an automated response by email.
“With each passing day, the danger and risk of being pursued by the Taliban intensifies,” insisted New Democrat Immigration Critic Jenny Kwan.
She urged the Liberals to extend and expand their special program, for which a threshold of 18,000 Afghans has been set. This ceiling is “arbitrary” and must be lifted, hammered Ms. Kwan.
“We call on the Government of Canada to keep the special immigration program open, without limit […]until everyone who has helped Canada can get away,” added Mr. Macdonald.
The Conservatives also want this program to be extended. Their immigration critic, Jasraj Singh Hallan, accused the Liberals of failing Afghans.
“This government has ignored expert warnings about the need for an evacuation plan and continues to fail to deliver on its commitments to our partners in Afghanistan. Afghans who have served alongside our country deserve better,” he said in a written statement.
Bloc member Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe also implores the Trudeau government to do more. In particular, he believes that freeing Afghan refugees from the requirement to provide biometric data would help their files move faster.
“It could be done when these people arrive in Canada, […] but the government stubbornly refuses this request, which is made by several NGOs and by the opposition in Parliament. »
The calls to step up the pace come as aid agencies working in Afghanistan are sounding the alarm that the country is in a dire humanitarian crisis, with 18.9 million people facing acute hunger.
A group of 15 organizations including the Red Cross and World Vision recently launched a campaign to ask Canada to provide exemptions to its sanctions against the Taliban since these prevent them from delivering aid on the ground.
“(These) sanctions, in addition to the anti-terrorism provisions, mean that our agencies could potentially be prosecuted under the Canadian Criminal Code,” summarized Reyhana Patel, public relations manager for the NGO Islamic Relief Canada.
The special committee on Afghanistan of the House of Commons recommended, in a report presented in June, that exemptions be enacted.
Appearing before this committee in May, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, acknowledged that there is “certainly a problem with the way we interpret the Criminal Code, because that limits the humanitarian aid that can be offered by Canada in Afghanistan”.
MNA Brunelle-Duceppe regrets that no exemption has yet been granted. “We are talking about human lives and, for a comma in a Criminal Code, we make sure that these people suffer and perhaps will not make it out alive. Not only is this unfortunate and absurd, but it is unacceptable. »
Of the 17,335 refugees who have arrived in Canada over the past year, 7,300 have been welcomed under the special program for former interpreters and other Afghans who have worked with Ottawa in Afghanistan.
The program has almost reached its limit of 18,000 people as more than 15,000 applications have been received and the office of Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says referrals for the remaining places have been collected.
Meanwhile, nearly 72,000 Ukrainians entered the country in 2022 alone, according to government statistics.
Vincent Hughes, spokesperson for Minister Fraser, argued that the Afghan and Ukrainian immigration programs are very different.
Helping to get people out of Afghanistan is very difficult, he said, because Canada has no diplomatic presence there and does not recognize the Taliban government. “Our commitment to bring at least 40,000 vulnerable Afghans to Canada remains and is one of the largest programs in the world,” he said.
“The situation in Afghanistan is unique, as we face challenges that have not been present in other large-scale resettlement initiatives,” he added.
In terms of private sponsorship of Afghan refugees, the director of Actions Réfugiés Montréal, Paul Clarke, has the impression that the processing of applications from Afghanistan by Ottawa has accelerated over the past year.
“It feels like our Afghan files have been pushed to the top of the pile,” he said.
However, he believes that organizations like his have their hands tied to do more because of the maximum number of sponsorship files that can be submitted to Quebec each year.
According to him, the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration must raise its thresholds in this area. Questioned on this point, the office of the Quebec Minister of Immigration, Jean Boulet, did not directly answer the question.
“Ottawa has once again demonstrated in this case its inability to manage a large number of cases and (only) admitted 17,000 (Afghan refugees). It goes without saying that the more the federal government accepts, the greater the number of Afghan nationals who will go to Quebec,” said the minister in a written statement provided by his team.
In addition, Mr. Boulet noted that “it seems that a significant proportion of Afghan refugees who have arrived to date have preferred to remain in the greater Toronto area where members of their families or relatives have already settled”.