Parliamentary Committee Notes: Humanitarian Program: Resettlement for Vulnerable Groups via Public Policies, including Operation Afghan Safety
Key messages
The operating environment in Afghanistan was and still remains extremely difficult and complex as the Taliban, a listed terror organization, is in control of the country. We have been navigating an extremely challenging environment, one in which the Government of Canada has no military or diplomatic presence.
In recognition of the vast array of vulnerable groups but limited spaces, our humanitarian program resettled a mix of both target group members and other vulnerable Afghans.
The humanitarian program, including early efforts referred to as Operation Afghan Safety, focused on individuals from vulnerable groups, including women leaders, LGBTQI+ people, human rights defenders, journalists, and members of religious and ethnic minorities including Sikhs, Hindus and Hazaras, and leveraged Canada's successful government assisted refugee (GAR) and privately sponsored refugee (PSR) program. Intake under this program is now closed.
Women leaders, along with their families, who were judges, human rights defenders, journalists, community organizers and Members of Parliament in Afghanistan are part of the over 25,000 who have already been resettled to Canada.
Given this unique and urgent situation, the Government of Canada had to be responsive, innovative and flexible, including with the creation of public policies to rapidly assist at-risk Afghans.
IRCC often works with organizations from specific religious, ethnic, community or humanitarian backgrounds to help resettle refugees in Canada. Private sponsors are responsible for the resettlement and integration of the individuals. Individual circumstances vary, and each public policy articulates the considerations for why specific measures were warranted.
Supplementary messages
As of October 1, 2024, 25,015 Afghan nationals have arrived in Canada under the Humanitarian program. We've received enough applications to fill all spots for this special program. We will continue to prioritize processing all eligible applications.
If pressed on Ministerial authority on creating public policies:
Section 25.2 provides the authority for the Minister of IRCC to establish public policies to grant a foreign national permanent resident status or an exemption from a criteria or obligation under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Act).
In the context of Afghanistan, the Minister has used this authority to issue public policies, for example to facilitate immigration to Canada in order to support evacuation efforts and to create special measures and programs to assist some of the most vulnerable groups in Afghanistan.
These include those who assisted the Government of Canada and their families, women leaders, human rights defenders, religious and ethnic minorities, including Sikhs, Hindus and Hazaras and other groups at risk of harm by the Taliban.
The Government of Canada also worked with organizations that were operationally active in Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries who had direct knowledge of particularly vulnerable individuals who were identified for resettlement based on the risks they faced.
There are several public polices related to the situation in Afghanistan, dating back to May 2021, and most of them are published on the IRCC website. There are instances where it is still not possible to publish certain information, as doing so would pose a threat to clients and staff, expose personal information, endanger national security, or damage Canada's international interests.
If pressed on who can refer, and RSD waivers:
The Government of Canada has been working with many organizations to resettle vulnerable Afghans, with a focus on priority groups, as Government-Assisted Refugees under the Afghanistan Resettlement Initiative.
The Government of Canada recognizes that Afghan refugees face obstacles in obtaining a Refugee Status Determination (RSD) document quickly, which is a requirement of the PSR program for Group of Five and Community Sponsors. This is why we waived this requirement for 3,000 privately sponsored refugee applications.
While the GAR pathways leverage trusted referral partners to identify vulnerable target groups for resettlement, the PSR pathway is open to any vulnerable Afghan and not limited to priority groups. For instance, the RSD waiver for 3,000 Afghans under the PSR program was open to any Afghan refugee. To this end, women fearing gender-based persecution, among others, were eligible to be resettled through this stream.
If pressed on Resettlement of religious and ethnic minorities including Afghan Sikhs and Hindus:
Afghan Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan face deep-rooted widespread discrimination and have suffered deadly attacks from Daesh affiliates. Their community has been declining for years and many have fled Afghanistan to seek asylum in other countries.
Vulnerable Afghan Sikhs were included for resettlement as government assisted refugees through the Temporary Public Policy for the Resettlement of Certain Afghan Nationals Selected by the Minister of IRCC under Operation Afghan Safety.
The Temporary Public Policy to Facilitate the Resettlement of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus was a Private Sponsorship of Refugees program. This means that private sponsors such as the Manmeet Singh Bhullar Foundation (MSBF) are responsible for the resettlement and integration of the individuals.
- Date modified: