‘The minister of immigration made promises directly to us, and we want him to keep these promises’
OTTAWA — Former Afghan interpreters who served alongside Canadian troops in Afghanistan accuse government officials of breaking promises and placing conditions on long-awaited family reunions that range from unreasonable to downright dangerous.
Testifying during Monday’s meeting of the House of Commons special committee on Afghanistan, former Canadian Forces interpreter Ahmad Shoaib described many of the promises made by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) as misleading.
“Afghan interpreters were once heroes to the government of Canada,” he told the committee.
“Today they are zeroes because they are stressed, depressed, panicking and mentally unstable due to the lives of their families and their loved ones.”
Canada’s 14-year Afghanistan mission was backstopped by hundreds of civilian contractors who worked as interpreters, security staff, fixers and embassy workers.
Between 2009 and 2012, Canada introduced special measures to grant these allies a pathway to permanent residence in Canada in exchange for their contribution, with criteria determined by the applicant’s “significant or enduring relationship with the Government of Canada.”
In November, IRCC announced it would expand the program to interpreters’ extended family, defined as the interpreter’s child, parent or sibling — as long as they were in Afghanistan on or after July 22, 2021.
Shoaib was one of five former Afghan interpreters who testified before the committee on Monday, all urging Canada to live up to promises that their families would soon be joining them.
Former interpreter Ghulam Faizi accused the Trudeau Liberals — who dissolved Parliament and announced last summer’s federal election on the same day Kabul fell to the Taliban — of using their families and their safety as political pawns.
“The federal government, in particular the IRCC, should stop playing politics with us,” Faizi said.
“It’s a matter of life and death for our parents and siblings.”
Hameed Khan described Afghanistan’s fall as an enduring national tragedy.
“We failed to build a society where freedom and women’s rights are respected, where everyone has an opportunity to be what they want, where the dreams of young generations can be seen, and where minorities had a voice,” the former interpreter testified.
“This pain will always be hunting us down because we believed in it, we fought for it with the Canadian Forces, shoulder to shoulder.”
Interpreters have had “dozens” of meetings with IRCC, Khan said — accusing both the agency and the office of the immigration minister of making empty promises and blatant double standards, including alleged reversals of promises that family members who escaped to third countries prior to July 22, 2021 would be eligible for IRCC’s Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP.)
“The minister of immigration made promises directly to us, and we want him to keep these promises,” Khan said.
He said IRCC case numbers would be issued to family members within just a few weeks, and that reunions would begin during the first quarter of this year.
“Zero families’ members have arrived under this current policy,” Khan said of interpreters who’ve taken advantage of IRCC’s November announcement.
While remaining in Afghanistan is incredibly dangerous for families, escaping to neighbouring Pakistan simply isn’t an option for many.
While some family members had Afghanistan passports prior to Kabul’s fall, many do not, Faizi explained — saying many weren’t able to complete the process before the Taliban’s return.
Faizi said they were told by IRCC agents they didn’t need to worry about that because their family members wouldn’t need passports.
That changed recently, he said — telling the committee that IRCC is now saying that transporting passport-less family members — both from inside Afghanistan and those seeking shelter in third countries — is “difficult.”
“IRCC promised us and promised the public that if an applicant made it to a third country they should contact IRCC and they would help them to take them out of that country,” he said.
“Going to the Taliban and asking them for a family passport, the first question they will ask is why do you need a passport for every single member of your family, who did you work for and who did you have a relationship with any foreign NATO members.”
Kahn said pressuring interpreters’ families to get passports is dangerous, as doing so would expose the names and addresses of even more interpreters’ family members to the Taliban.
IRCC’s Nov. 24 announcement says statutory declarations by applicants can replace missing passports or identity documents.
Interpreters were also concerned by comments last month from Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to CBC reporter Raffy Boudjikanian, implying that loosening immigration restrictions for interpreters’ family members — similar to ones made for those fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — would present a number of security issues.
Escaping to Pakistan doesn’t come cheap, Faizi explained.
Not only are Afghan citizens required to hold valid Afghanistan passports, visas cost anywhere between $300 to $900 and require the services of third-party agents.
Others who did manage to secure a visa, he said, are now seeing their visas expire due to IRCC’s slow processing.
Interpreters want IRCC to start issuing family members’ case numbers, provide clear timeframes, and make it easier for family members forced to live as refugees in third countries while Canada finishes their paperwork.
“It’s a matter of life and death, it’s not a matter of paperwork,” Khan told the committee.
“We want them to be evacuated to a third country to make sure they’re safe, to make sure they don’t become a victim of our ‘enduring relationship’ with the Canadian government.”
• Email: bpassifiume@postmedia.com | Twitter:
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
— With files from Keith Doucette in Halifax
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
The Harris campaign has taken on Beyonce’s track “Freedom,” a cut from her landmark 2016 album “Lemonade,” as its anthem.
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Time limits were meant to speed up justice. They also halt hundreds of criminal cases
Telus prioritizing ‘most important customers,’ avoiding ‘unprofitable’ offers: CFO
Donald Trump election sparks U.S. interest in move to Canada, say immigration lawyers
Who will buy Infowars? Both supporters and opponents of Alex Jones interested in bankruptcy auction
Winger Tajon Buchanan back with Canada after recovering from broken leg
‘Big frustration’: How a limited MAID window affects Alzheimer’s patients
Champions Trophy host Pakistan says it’s not been told India wants to play cricket games elsewhere
Port of Montreal employer submits ‘final’ offer to dockworkers, threatens lockout
