How one MP pushed to help Yazidis

• Nadia Murad had tears in her eyes as she described the power that individual MPs can have when they stand up to vote.

A few minutes earlier, she had watched 313 MPs vote unanimously in favour of a Conservative motion to recognize that the violence perpetrated by ISIL against the Yazidis constitutes genocide — and commit to providing asylum to women and girls from the persecuted minority within 120 days.

Murad — a 23-year-old Yazidi activist who had escaped sexual slavery by the Islamist militant group after they raided her village in northern Iraq — told reporters she felt ISIL losing power with every MP who stood up to vote for the motion.

“( They) never thought their slaves will one day come out and will be speaking against them,” she said. “I would like to thank you — to thank everyone that made this happen,” she said.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, the immigration critic who had put forward the opposition day motion, was one of them.

For months, the Liberals had skirted her increasingly loud calls for asylum. But last week, the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP were all on the same side, backing Rempel’s motion.

“It was one of those things where it renewed my faith t hat Parliament can do something that resembles work,” the Calgary MP said of how she brought everyone on- side. “But it was like pushing a boulder up hill.”

Rempel said she reached out to a handful of Liberal MPs she thought might be sympathetic, to see if they could suss out the likelihood of getting government support for the motion. But she said they came back with the impression it was not going to fly.

Rempel had some quiet — and some not- so- quiet — support from Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, who had been one of four Liberals to break ranks and vote in favour of a failed Conservative motion in June declaring the atrocities committed by ISIL to be a genocide.

Rempel figured she probably had at least a dozen Liberal MPs ready to support the motion, which she thought was enough, given the New Democrats had also committed to voting for it.

Meanwhile, talks were ongoing to come up with amendments to the motion, with the Conservatives eventually deciding to remove language accusing the Liberal government of having “neglected” to do enough, and extending the timeline from 30 to 120 days.

That part was key for Immigration Minister John McCallum, who said the Liberals had already decided they were going to support the motion. McCallum said he was reminded of something former prime minister Paul Martin had once said about a motion on the atrocities in Darfur.

“He said when people are being killed, it’s not a top priority to debate about the wording of a motion.”