QUESTION PERIOD — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Resettlement of Refugees
June 16, 2022
Honourable senators, I wish to ask the Leader of the Government in the Senate a question about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
What we know is we are seeing that innocent Ukrainian civilians need more support to face the brunt of a vicious world leader defying international law, and the unequal sympathy and treatment that Western countries, including Canada, have shown refugees from other conflict zones.
Minister Sean Fraser told us Canada is ready to welcome Ukrainians and that “there is no limit to the number of applications.” We are seeing this disparity between 43,000 Ukrainians and around 16,000 Afghans coming to our country. We have heard unpalatable discourse explaining that this has to do, essentially, with systemic racism.
Senator Gold, how does the government justify the vastly disparate treatment and outcomes in Ukrainian and Afghan resettlement efforts?
The government is not in the business of justifying the difference. The explanation would be multifold, including the different circumstances — horrible though they are in both cases, in Afghanistan and surrounding area and in Ukraine and surrounding countries — with regard to the ease or difficulty with which the processing of interested refugees could take place.
In that regard, the government continues to do its very best to welcome as many refugees as it can from Ukraine and continue to work to reach higher levels of immigration from Afghanistan.
