The Vancouver Sun carried an article recently from Daphne Bramham about our attempts to speed up the processing for our family in the Iraqi refugee camp.
One of our Syrian Refugee Committee members, Wes Knapp, also met with Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum to appeal for faster processing of our family. Minister McCallum was in Vancouver on March 18 speaking to the Board of Trade on the topic of Immigration and Refugees.Here is the report on his meeting:
When I arrived at the hotel, I saw a woman in the area outside the ballroom so I approached and asked if she was with the Minister’s staff. She said she was. I said, great!, I’m here from the False Creek South Neighbourhood Association to deliver a letter to Minister McCallum about our family that’s stranded in Iraq. She said “let me tell the Minister you’re here, he’s upstairs with other staff members. She asked my name and said ” I’ll be right back”. She was back in a flash with another staff member, and said “Mr. Knapp, the Minister wants to meet you.” I really didn’t expect this as I didn’t have an appointment. So off we went; she ushered me into a room where the staff of 8 were assembled, all standing up and preparing to go the ballroom. We shook hands and he said, I understand you have a letter for me. I said, “indeed, I do”, handed it to him and told him what it said. He asked how long we’ve been waiting, and how much we knew about the family. He was very attentive to our concerns and said he was working on ways to speed things up. He asked about the family and when I mentioned the two children and their ages, the staff members, all women except one man, were visibly moved, showing it in their faces and utterances of joy. As I sensed they were getting ready to go down to the ballroom, I ended by drawing attention to the photos of the apartment which were attached to the letter, saying we were so fortunate to find an apartment in Vancouver, urging him to look closely at the photos and reflect on the fact that our family is in a leaky tent in Iraq, implying of course they would much rather be in the apartment that is waiting for them.
At the very end, I said we had forwarded the same letter to our MP Hedy Fry and have had a report from Jenny Kwan on her meeting with you, Mr. Minister. He replied “with those two women working on your case, I’ll never get any sleep.”