Starting Wednesday, Canada will expand the evacuation of its citizens from Haiti to include relatives and permanent residents of Canada, if conditions permit.
The government is also arranging charter flights for Canadians to pay market rates to fly between the Dominican Republic and Montreal.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced a week ago that Canada was airlifting people with valid Canadian passports from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, and Ottawa later announced that 153 people had left the country.
At the time, Joly said Ottawa was pressuring the Dominican Republic to allow Canadian permanent residents and foreign relatives of Canadians to board helicopter flights.
Global Affairs Canada is recording an increase in Canadians seeking help fleeing Haiti as hopes for a waning in widespread violence give way to gang chaos.
A week ago, 300 people asked for help, and 200 more have since asked to join the evacuation of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Relatives of citizens or permanent residents eligible for airlift include spouses, common-law partners, and dependent children.
The Caribbean country has been facing a political and humanitarian crisis since mid-2021, with gangs carrying out brazen violence across the country while restricting access to food and essential goods.
The situation worsened last month when progress toward foreign military intervention led the gang to release prisoners and shut down Haiti’s main airport.
As of Monday, 3,110 people with ties to Canada had voluntarily registered to stay in Haiti in Ottawa.
The NDP had called on the Liberals to launch a family reunification program for Canadian relatives living in Haiti who are at risk of extreme violence.
Asked about the proposal last week, Immigration Minister Mark Miller said Ottawa committed a year ago to take in 15,000 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere on humanitarian grounds. The changes were announced at the same time as the closure of an increasingly popular route for people traveling from the United States to Canada to apply for asylum.
“We are also focused on rescuing people we have taken on as part of our efforts,” he said, noting that “thousands” are sponsored by Haitian-Canadians.
“This is a situation that we are monitoring very closely, and I always feel that Canadians can count on their government to show a very humane face to this conflict.”
