Ottawa says only a handful of visas have been approved for Gaza refugees with relatives in Canada

A little more than two months after Ottawa opened a pathway for Canadian citizens and permanent residents to obtain visas for extended family members in Gaza, very few applications have been approved because only a handful of people have been able to leave Gaza in order to complete the secondary screening step in Egypt.

As of Monday, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says only 14 people have been able to complete the temporary resident visa application. All were subsequently granted approval to Canada.

This comes despite the fact that 986 applications have been submitted since the pathway opened in early January.

“The Government of Canada has put forward names of people who passed preliminary eligibility and admissibility reviews to local authorities for approval, but does not ultimately decide who can exit Canada,” an IRCC spokesperson said in an email to Global News.

“Fourteen people who exited Gaza on their own and had (temporary resident visa) applications in process were able to submit biometrics and complete their application.”

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For Canadians with loved ones stranded in the embattled region, it’s become clear the Canadian government can do nothing more to help.

“The government is failing us big time here as Canadians,” says Tamer Jarada, a Palestinian Canadian living in Calgary.

Last October, an airstrike killed 17 of Jarada’s family members in Gaza, including his parents and two sisters. Now, he’s desperately trying to bring his surviving sister and her family to Canada.

“My sister’s family along with my in-laws are in Rafah just waiting for their visa to be processed to come to Canada,” Jarada says.

Fifteen of 17 applications have been granted initial approval. Fingerprints and a photo are required before Ottawa can grant final visa, but those biometrics can only be obtained in Egypt.

“I was speaking to my sister and as always she was crying, begging for help” Jarada said. “I was hearing the bombs around the tent in Rafah and her kids were crying around her.”

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Last month, Jarada says his sister gave birth to his youngest nephew, Adam, in a tent with no anesthetic. The infant is now in hospital with an infection but there is no medicine available to treat the child.

“I’m trying my best to help her and her family members along with my inlaws,” he said. “We are taking this on ourselves right now.”

Jarada and his wife have now resorted to raising money to pay Egyptian operatives to bring their family members out of Gaza. They are now crowdfunding to raise the $160,000 required.

“The campaign is to cover their expenses to exit Gaza and stay in Egypt and (then) my wife and myself will be responsible for their resettlement expenses here in Canada.”

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Marc Miller,  says he doesn’t fault families like the Jaradas for taking matters into their own hands.

“It’s a very difficult risk proposition to engage with third parties to extract people from Gaza into Egypt and Canada can’t be the guarantor of those intermediaries,” Miller told Global News Tuesday.  “We obviously would prefer a much more reliable way of getting people out but I’m not going to blame people for taking lives into their hands and taking extraordinary measures to save their own people.”

Miller says the government plans to issue more codes to visa applicants in the coming weeks.  The codes indicate an applicant has received initial approval and can proceed to the secondary screening step in Egypt.

“The challenge still remains at Rafah gates, that is not something that we should underestimate and I frankly don’t know how the motion I think we rightly adopted (Monday) will impact the authorities on the ground including Israel that are watching the actions of Canada,” Miller said.  “So again, I don’t want to entertain false hope, Canada is continuing to work to get those people out.”

A heavily amended NDP motion on Palestinian statehood passed in the House of Commons on Monday. The amended version was supported by all but three Liberal MPs. It urges Canada to “actively pursue” the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a negotiated two-state solution, which aligns with Canada’s existing policy. It also included reference to Hamas as a terrorist organization and a demand that Hamas lay down its arms.