Sudanese who fled el-Fasher city, after Sudan's paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people in the western Darfur region, crowd to receive food at their camp in Tawila, Sudan, on Sunday.Mohammed Abaker/The Associated Press
Immigration officials advised shelving a special humanitarian program, designed to help Sudanese Canadians bring family members here to escape civil war in the African country, over concerns that plans to reduce immigration could be undermined, sources say.
The officials argued that bringing in Sudanese could affect the government’s immigration levels plan, annual targets that the government sets for the number of permanent and temporary residents it plans to admit.
But former immigration minister Marc Miller, two sources say, last year rejected that argument as he thought Canada should help family members of Canadians caught up in what has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
He pressed ahead with establishing a pathway to permanent residence for those with direct family ties to Sudanese Canadians, although processing delays have left thousands who applied stranded. Mr. Miller declined to comment.
The Globe and Mail is not naming the two sources who were not authorized to discuss policy formation publicly.
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The Sudan war has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, forced 12 million people from their homes and left 30 million people in need of emergency aid.
Thousands of unarmed civilians were killed this week by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the city of El Fasher after a prolonged siege, according to estimates from human-rights groups and independent monitoring sites. Reports included the killing of hundreds of people in a hospital.
The immigration department had begun discussing ways to help Sudanese family members in 2023 before Mr. Miller took over as immigration minister from Sean Fraser in July in a cabinet shuffle.
But some senior officials within the department, the sources said, were loath to press ahead with a family reunification program, advising that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada should not move forward with it, also citing concerns about funding.
Ranya Elfil, a board member of the Sudanese Canadian Community Association, was among those who had been asking IRCC to help families of Canadians find a safe haven here after war erupted in 2023 between Sudan’s army and the RSF.
She said Mr. Miller and a senior member of his office “pushed through and made this happen.”
“There was a lot of pain to get this through,” she said.
Isabelle Dubois, a spokesperson for the immigration department, declined to comment “on past decisions.”
“We remain focused on implementing the government’s current priorities,” she said.
The Sudan family-reunification program was introduced in February last year. According to figures provided to the community association by IRCC, about 1,950 people have so far arrived in Canada through the pathway. About 7,200 people have applied to come here, many of whom are waiting outside Sudan, including in Egypt, for their applications to be approved after getting biometric checks.
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The special pathway for direct family of Sudanese Canadians to flee the civil war is included in the humanitarian and compassionate category under the government’s immigration levels plan. The humanitarian category has a 10,000-person upper limit for admissions this year. But next year, the numbers are set to be reduced to 6,900, and in 2027 to 4,300.
This week, the government is expected to publish its new immigration levels. Refugee advocates have urged Ottawa to expand its humanitarian targets, rather than cutting them further.
Ms. Elfil and other Sudanese Canadians have been meeting MPs about the situation in Sudan and delays to processing applications. On Friday, she said she met with Minister for Women Rechie Valdez, who Ms. Elfil said told her that this year’s immigration levels plan would not impact humanitarian programs.
“Hearing this from a minister, I want to believe this is true,” Ms. Elfil said.
Sarphina Chui, spokesperson for Ms. Valdez, said “the discussion provided an important opportunity to hear directly from community members about the impacts of the ongoing conflict in Sudan and to reaffirm Canada’s commitment to supporting those affected by this crisis.”
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She said the previous immigration levels plan struck “a balance between community capacity, economic objectives and humanitarian responsibilities.”
“Part of these humanitarian responsibilities includes upholding Canada’s long-standing commitment to protecting the world’s most vulnerable, including people affected by the conflict in Sudan,” she said in an e-mail.
“Canada is horrified by the violence unfolding in Sudan and will continue to welcome refugees and support the Sudanese people.”
The government has been under pressure to reduce the number of permanent and temporary residents amid falling public support for immigration. It has set a target to reduce the share of temporary residents to 5 per cent of the population by the end of next year.
At a meeting of the House of Commons immigration committee earlier this month, Harpreet Kochhar, deputy minister of immigration, said that the numbers being allowed in from Sudan are constrained by targets set out by the government in its annual immigration levels plan.
He said the plan “sets up a fixed-capacity model as to how many people we will need to bring through humanitarian and compassionate grounds, through the crisis response, as well as through economic and family reunification.”