Yazidi effort proof gov’t works: Ambrose

Refugee plan led by opposition after listening to Canadians

OTTAWA — Efforts underway to give asylum to 1,200 primarily Yazidi refugees by year end should help bolster people’s confidence in government, says Interim Opposition leader Rona Ambrose.

At a time when people are losing faith in democratic institutions, the ability of opposition and government to come together to do what was right for Yazidis is proof the system can work, she said.

“It was the right thing to do, and it wasn’t the government’s agenda, but Canadians spoke, the opposition spoke, there was a moral authority issue here as well,” Ambrose said. “And democracy worked in this instance.” Ambrose made the comments in an interview from the sidelines of a conservative conference in Ottawa this weekend that is grappling with the question of populism and politics.

A key theme has been ensuring governments aren’t just promoting their own agendas, but also listening directly to the people.

Ambrose said the fact that the Opposition were able to put forward a motion to bring 400 Yazidis to Canada and convince the Liberals to come on side was proof government does listen.

She called the failure of Canada to do more for the minority Kurdish sect in the past an oversight, but acknowledged refugee issues were not as much on her radar when the Conservatives were in government.

The Conservative government chose to join the international bombing campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq in part because of the Yazidis. In 2014, thousands of them were under siege on a mountain in northern Iraq being told to convert or they would be killed, a situation that put a very human face on the horrors of the Islamic State regime.

Yet the Tories never directly focused on Yazidis, even as they were prioritizing minority religious groups from the region. Only a handful were resettled in Canada under that government.

The fact that Yazidi women were being used as sex slaves — and a UN declaration in 2016 that they were facing genocide — was what drew Ambrose’s attention.

Together with Immigration critic Michelle Rempel and Foreign Affairs critic Peter Kent, she began a sustained campaign to get the government to take action.

The effort culminated in a motion calling on the government to agree to a large-scale refugee resettlement program. The motion passed unanimously last fall and the plan for bringing 1,200 people to Canada in the coming months was unveiled last week.