Canadian citizens and permanent residents with family members trapped in Gaza met privately this week with Immigration Minister Mark Miller to call for changes to a special immigration program they say has so far failed.
“We’re not asking him for the moon. We’re asking for a perfectly reasonable adjustment,” said Omar Omar, a permanent resident of Vancouver whose family of 18 is trying to evacuate Gaza. said in an interview with CBC News.
“They have to have a seat at the table that tells us exactly what’s going on and be fully transparent about who’s causing the mess and why Canada can’t rescue those people.” not.”
The temporary residence visa program was announced in January in response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The program promised to provide up to 1,000 visas. relatives Number of Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
Now, almost three months later, the program has failed to bring any relatives to Canada, and families in Canada say the situation has become desperate.
“This morning I called my sister who lives in the northern Gaza Strip,” Omar said this week. “They’re looking for food every day to survive the day. They literally get calls from their families saying they’re hungry.”
Mark Miller said Canada has presented an initial list of people to evacuate from Gaza to local authorities, including Egypt and Israel, and hopes for swift approval. “Perhaps the people on the ground may not be comfortable letting these people out, but this is a humanitarian act,” he said.
When the program was announced, Mr Miller said the new measures recognized the importance of “bringing families together in light of the ongoing crisis” in the region.
A month later, he told reporters at the scrum that he was “pissed off” by its failures so far.
“You don’t want to create a system that gives you false hope, but you also don’t want to throw your arms down and not try,” Miller said.
“It’s really frustrating and obviously it’s a matter of life and death for the families in question.”
Family members say to fix the program
To apply, families residing in Canada must first submit a list of family members’ names and dates of birth. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will issue a code for each name submitted.
Once the sponsor receives the code, they can begin the application process, which requires extensive background information and biometric testing. CBC reported Some families reportedly died waiting to receive the codes in Gaza.
Omar said no one in her family has received a code, even though she applied on January 9, the first day the program started.
Families who met with Mr. Miller this week said they would like to see the following changes:
- Eliminate the 1,000 person cap.
- You no longer need to obtain a code to apply
- Expand eligibility to Palestinians outside of Gaza.
- Skip tedious background questions in your application.
Their families claim it is “intrusive” to request information such as their complete work history up to the age of 16, details of their social media accounts, any scars on their bodies and whether they have treated Hamas members as health workers.
Palestinians who fled Gaza, or some Palestinians who left the Gaza Strip for work or pleasure before October 7 and are now trapped in third countries, cannot apply for the program. Families say they would like to see eligibility expanded to include this group.
Miller also heard that Canadian families want IRCC to negotiate directly with private agencies that have been evacuating people from Gaza for a fee.
CBC News reached out to Miller’s office for a response to the request, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Extend and simplify your program
Pantea Jafari, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, said requiring background information and documents that are extremely difficult to obtain and verify in the middle of an ongoing dispute is unfair to these vulnerable people. He said it was fair.
“Never in the history of immigration policy and programs have we seen this level of information requested from the public in any program,” Panthea told CBC News.
Jafari said Canada can work with international partners and Interpol to vet people with safety concerns without burdening those fleeing for their lives.
Omar Omar’s brother Firas tears up paper to keep the fire going under a cooking pot in northern Gaza. The Omar people are waiting for their applications under the temporary visa program to be approved in order to evacuate Gaza and come to Canada.
Peter MacKay, former Conservative Foreign Secretary oversaw the 2006 evacuation Violence has erupted between Israel and the Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah, killing 15,000 Canadians from Lebanon.
McKay said the evacuation from Lebanon faced similar security concerns, but the Lebanese government managed to get through the crisis without stranding people in the country.
“It sounds like an unreasonable bureaucratic hurdle in this situation,” he told CBC News.
“If their lives are in danger, which they probably are, it seems frankly ridiculous to put such a burden on someone who is running for their life. ”
John Allen, who served as Canada’s ambassador to Israel from 2006 to 2010, told CBC News that families from Gaza currently trapped in third countries are “essentially refugees” and that the program will protect them. He said it could easily be expanded to include:
“They’ve already got 1,000 people, so they need to add another 500 people to the list to get to 1,500,” Allen said. “These are not troubling numbers, even in today’s anti-immigrant, anti-student environment.
“Canadians will understand that these are people in a desperate situation,” he added.
When it comes to working with private agencies that can help people escape from Gaza for between $5,000 and $10,000 USD (CAD $6,770 and $13,500 CAD) to help those fleeing to Egypt through the Rafah border. He wasn’t so optimistic.
“‘If these private companies can do it, why can’t the Canadian government? Because these companies are bribing the Egyptian security guards on the border. And they’re probably bribing Hamas as well. I guess they are making this happen.
“This is great for the people getting out, but it’s clearly not something a foreign government can get involved with,” he added.
“I’ll try whatever I can.”
Even though people managed to negotiate the application process for temporary residence visas and submit their names to authorities in both Israel and Egypt, the Canadian government admits that they were unable to leave Gaza.
Observers say it is difficult to understand why this is happening or who is responsible for preventing their departure.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have any concrete insight into why that doesn’t happen,” Allen said. “I can tell you that our country is not alone in facing this situation.”
Allen said there is a sufficient diplomatic presence in both Ramallah and Israel, but that things need to change at the ministerial level.
“These things are not about diplomats,” he added. “This is not a question of whether our ambassador will join the Foreign Office or not, but a much higher-level question.”
Omar said Miller’s staff told him IRCC would keep him and community representatives informed, but in the meantime, they would continue to pressure the Liberal government to bring his family home. Told.
“I promised them many times that they would come to Canada, and to be honest, I’m going to do everything in my power to get them here,” he said.
“Because even if I have to go to Ottawa and go on a hunger strike until they get here, they can’t treat me as less than anyone else as a Canadian.”
