Ex-foreign minister Peter MacKay decries 'ludicrous' bureaucratic hurdles for Palestinians trying to flee Gaza

WARNING | This story con‐ tains a photo of dead chil‐ dren.

Canadian citizens and per‐ manent residents with family members trapped in Gaza met privately with Immigra‐ tion Minister Marc Miller this week to press for changes to the special immigration pro‐ gram they say has so far failed them.

"We're not asking him for the moon. We are asking him for adjustments that make complete sense," said Omar Omar, a permanent resident in Vancouver who has 18 family members attempting to flee Gaza, in an interview with CBC News.

"They have to be [at] the table of telling us what ex‐ actly is happening and be ful‐ ly transparent about who is putting the sticks in the wheels and why Canada is not capable of getting those people out."

The temporary resident visa program was announced in January in response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza due to the ongoing Is‐ rael-Hamas war. The pro‐ gram promised to provide a maximum of 1,000 visas to extended family members of Canadian citizens and per‐ manent residents.

Nearly three months later, the program has failed to bring even one relative to Canada, and family members here say the situation has be‐ come desperate.

"I had a call this morning with my sister in the northern part of the Gaza Strip," Omar said this week. "Those people are surviving day to day trying to find food every day. I literally have calls from my family members saying that they are hungry."

When the program was announced, Miller said the new measures recognized the importance of "keeping families together given the ongoing crisis" in the region.

A month later, he told re‐ porters in a scrum that he is "pissed off" with its failure to bring anyone to Canada so far.

WATCH | Immigration minister angered by delays in getting people in Gaza out:

"I don't want to create a system that's entertaining false hope, but I also don't want to drop my arms and not try," said Miller.

"It's really frustrating, and, obviously, it's a matter of life and death for the families in question."

More than 33,000 Pales‐ tinians have been killed and 75,750 have been injured in the six months since Israel began its bombing campaign in the wake of a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people, according to officials in Gaza and Israel, respectively.

Amend the program, families say

To apply, a family member in Canada must first provide a list of names and birth dates of family members. Immigra‐ tion, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) then issues a code for each name submit‐ ted.

Once the sponsor receives the code they can begin the application process which re‐ quires extensive background information and biometric tests. CBC has reported that some family members have died in Gaza waiting to re‐ ceive their code.

Omar says he hasn't re‐ ceived a single code for any of his family members de‐ spite applying on Jan. 9, the first day the program opened.

WATCH | Omar's brother cooks on an open stove in Gaza as he awaits visa ap‐ proval:

Family members who met Miller this week said they want changes that include:

Removing the 1,000 per‐ son cap. Eliminating the requirement to obtain a code to apply Expanding the eligibility to Pales‐ tinians outside of Gaza. Cutting the onerous background questions in the application.

Family members say the re‐ quirement to provide a com‐ plete work history back to the age of 16, details of their social media accounts, bodily scars and whether they have treated members of Hamas as a health-care worker are "intrusive and invasive."

Some Palestinians who have escaped Gaza, or who left for business or pleasure prior to Oct. 7 and are now trapped in third-countries are unable to apply through the program. Family members say they want eligibility ex‐ panded to include this group.

Miller also heard that family members in Canada would like IRCC to negotiate

directly with private agencies who have been able to get people out of Gaza for a fee.

CBC News asked Miller's office for a response to the demands but did not receive a reply in time for publica‐ tion.

Expanding, simplifying the program

Toronto immigration lawyer Pantea Jafari said requiring background information and documentation - that are ex‐ tremely difficult to obtain and verify in the midst of a war - is unfair to people in such a vulnerable position.

"In the history of immigra‐ tion policy and programming, we have never seen that level of information requested from any population under any program," Pantea told CBC News.

Jafari said Canada can work with international part‐ ners and Interpol to vet peo‐ ple for security concerns without placing the burden on people running for their lives.

Former Conservative for‐ eign affairs minister Peter MacKay oversaw the 2006 evacuation of 15,000 Canadi‐ ans from Lebanon after vio‐ lence erupted between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon.

MacKay said he faced sim‐ ilar security concerns with the evacuation of Lebanon, and his government man‐ aged to navigate them with‐ out stranding people in the country.

"It sounds like a bureau‐ cratic hurdle that is unrea‐ sonable in these circum‐ stances," he told CBC News.

"If their lives are at risk, which they arguably are, it seems to me ludicrous, quite frankly, to be putting that kind of a burden on some‐ body who's fleeing for their life."

Jon Allen, who served as Canada's ambassador to Is‐ rael from 2006 to 2010, told CBC News that family mem‐ bers from Gaza now trapped in third countries are "essen‐ tially refugees" and the pro‐ gram could easily be ex‐ panded to include them.

"They've already got 1,000, so they'd have to add another 500 to the list to make it 1,500," Allen said. "Those numbers even in the current anti-immigration, an‐ ti-student environment, aren't the kind of numbers that should cause a problem.

"Canadians would under‐ stand these are people in desperate need."

When it comes to working with private agencies who can get people out of Gaza for anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 US ($6,770 and $13,500 Cdn) to help them escape into Egypt through the Rafah crossing, he was less optimistic.

"You could say: 'Well, if these private companies can do that, why can't the Cana‐ dian government?'" Allen said. "Because those com‐ panies are bribing … Egyptian guards at the border, and maybe bribing Hamas as well to allow this to happen.

"Which is great for the people that get out, but obvi‐ ously, not something that a foreign government can get involved in."

'I will do every single thing in my power'

Even when people have man‐ aged to navigate the tempo‐ rary resident visa application process and their names have been submitted to both Israeli and Egyptian authori‐ ties, they have been unable to leave Gaza, the Canadian government confirmed.

Observers say it's difficult to understand why this is happening or who is respon‐ sible for preventing them from leaving.

"I unfortunately don't have any specific insights on why it's not happening," Allen said. "I can tell you we're not the only country facing this."

Allen says that there is a sufficient diplomatic pres‐ ence in both Ramallah and in Israel but that the situation needs to be changed at the ministerial level.

"These things are not about diplomats," he said. "This isn't about our ambas‐ sador going into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or not going into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is at a much higher level."

Omar said Miller's staff told him IRCC will keep him and representatives from the community informed, but in the meantime, he says he will keep the pressure on the Lib‐ eral government to get his family home.

"I promised them multiple times that they will come to Canada. And to be honest, I will do every single thing in my power to bring them here," he said.

"Even if I will have to go and sit in Ottawa and do a hunger strike until they're here, because I cannot be treated less as a Canadian than other people."

WATCH | Trudeau criti‐ cizes Netanyahu's com‐ ments on airstrike that killed aid workers: