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Member of Parliament

Salma Zahid

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Liberal
  • Scarborough Centre
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $131,199.78

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 12 - Dec/7/21
Mrs. Salma Zahid
  • Dec/7/21 4:55:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been a member and the chair of the citizenship and immigration committee. We have done important work in that committee to ensure that the settlement agencies that do the important work to settle refugees here, as well as new immigrants, have all the supports they need to help. I have seen first-hand the work of those agencies in my riding. I will continue to work with them to ensure they have the support and help they need to serve new immigrants.
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Context: House Hansard - 12 - Dec/7/21
Mrs. Salma Zahid
  • Dec/7/21 4:53:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, we need to thank the people who helped the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Canada and Afghanistan have had a long-lasting relationship, with the long deployment, and many Afghan people have been there for our Canadian troops. It is very important that we continue our work and ensure that we bring the vulnerable people here, the people who have helped, as well as those people, especially Afghan women and girls, whose situation is really terrible. We should all figure out ways in which we can do better to bring more people here as soon as possible, so they can start a new life in Canada.
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Context: House Hansard - 12 - Dec/7/21
Mrs. Salma Zahid
  • Dec/7/21 4:51:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the hon. member for all the work we did together on the immigration committee in the last Parliament. I agree with the member that it has been slow. We need to do better, and better is always possible, but I want to remind him that the department and the officials continue to process applications for Afghan refugees day in and day out. They have mobilized the entire global network to process the visas and issue them on an urgent basis. There are 4,000 Afghan refugees here. Another 500 will be coming this year.
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Context: House Hansard - 12 - Dec/7/21
Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.)
  • Dec/7/21 4:41:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your role; it is good to see you sitting in the chair. As this is my first speech in the 44th Parliament, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Scarborough Centre for placing their trust in me once again to be their strong voice in Ottawa. I will work hard every day to be worthy of their trust and to bring the issues they care about to the government and to the House of Commons. I would also like to thank all my campaign team and volunteers. While the COVID environment did present some challenges, their hard work and dedication never ceases to amaze me and their energy keeps me going on the longest days. I thank them. I thank my family, my husband Salman and my sons Umaid and Usman, for their continued support in my political journey. I would like to focus my remarks today on the immigration aspects of the crisis in Afghanistan and what we can do to ensure as many people as possible who are in need are brought safely to Canada and to ensure they are able to settle safely here with their families and build a new life in peace and prosperity. I am a firm believer in learning lessons, so what we do in the future can be improved. A post-mortem of the entirety of Canada’s mission to Afghanistan, not just a few select years, would be a valuable exercise to the benefit of Canada’s foreign policy and international aid and development programs. I would point out that, especially from an immigration perspective, what is happening in Afghanistan is an ongoing crisis. People need help right now. Our focus should be on how we can finish the job and get those who need our help to safety. Let us first acknowledge the progress that has been made to date. More than 4,000 Afghans have already arrived in Canada and are being resettled, and some 415 individuals have already arrived through Canada’s humanitarian program, which targets the resettlement of particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals, including women leaders, human rights advocates, LGBTI individuals, persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, and journalists. Officials at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada are working day and night to process Afghan refugee applications and issue visas. More than 9,000 applications, under the special immigration measures to resettle Afghan nationals who assisted the Government of Canada, along with their family members, have been processed. Officials are doing all they can to stay in contact with and support those who remain in Afghanistan and wish to resettle to Canada. The biggest issue remains the Taliban’s control of the region, which makes it very difficult to get people safely out of the country. We call on the Taliban to allow safe passage for those who wish to leave. The people-to-people ties between Canada and Afghanistan are strong, built over the length of our long-term deployment there, as we did our best to help secure the country and provide development and opportunity for all people of Afghanistan. My community of Scarborough Centre has strong ties to Afghanistan, from business to cultural to personal, and they have watched the events of this past year with deep interest and keen worry. I hear every day from my constituents on this issue. Many are separated from their families, with siblings or parents in Afghanistan. They worry for their safety and for their future, especially the women and girls, for whom, as we all know, life is very challenging and very dangerous under Taliban rule. Canada and our allies must continue to be clear with the Taliban that they must show respect for basic rights, especially for women and girls. We must find ways to support women and girls in the region who need our help. With winter approaching, it is critical the international community works collectively to meet the needs of vulnerable Afghans My constituents want to know how their family members can be brought to safety. They want to know what Canada is doing to help them. Canada has committed to bring 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada. Given the challenges I have outlined, that will be a challenging goal. I certainly welcome all suggestions and ideas for how meeting this goal can be accelerated so the families in my riding and across Canada can be reunited and their loved ones brought to safety. Already many Afghan refugees have been resettled in the greater Toronto area, and I want to thank local organizations such as the Afghan Women’s Organization and Agincourt Community Services Association that have been working to support and welcome them. A few weeks ago, I met with a group of recently arrived Afghan refugees. As members can imagine, they are excited and relieved to be here, but they also worry about extended family left behind and what the future holds for them in Canada. We need to ensure they are supported and get answers to their questions and we need to ensure lessons learned from the Syrian refugee resettlement are applied in this program. I should note that at the heart of both of these programs is the government-assisted refugees program. A lot of attention is paid to privately sponsored refugees, and this is a great Canadian innovation that sees community groups come together to sponsor and support refugee families for their first year in Canada. It is an important part of our immigration and refugee system, but it cannot be our entire refugee program, which is what the Conservatives proposed just a few months ago in their election platform when they promised to do away with government-assisted refugees. A look at refugee data shows that government-assisted refugees tend to be the more vulnerable, the more at risk, the more in need of Canada’s help. To turn our backs on them is to turn our backs on those that most need Canada's help, and that is not what Canada should be about. The refugees we are helping in Afghanistan are government-assisted refugees and they need Canada’s help. Therefore, my focus is on how we can help make the Afghan refugee program a success and bring these people who need our help here as quickly as we can. I do not oppose the idea of a special committee, but I think these are certainly issues the immigration and refugee committee could take up and bring its expertise to bear by bringing in witnesses from those familiar with the situation on the ground to organizations focused on resettlement to provide actionable recommendations to the government. What gives me pause is what seems like a very broad request for documents, many of which are likely to contain information that could compromise national security, military tactics, intelligence sources and methods, and the identity and location of Canadian citizens in Afghanistan or interpreters or contractors who assisted Canada and our allies. I do not see how this would help Canada bring more Afghan refugees to Canada. My constituents are not asking me for documents; they are asking me to help their families, and this request could potentially put their families in danger. If we truly want to help the refugees, let us get the politics out of the motion and focus on what really matters here: helping those who need Canada’s help.
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