No Nobler Cause to Commit to: Rescue of Yazidi Women and Girls: Immigration to Canada

That the House
(a) recognize that ISIS is committing genocide against the Yazidi people;
(b) acknowledge that many Yazidi women and girls are still being held captive by ISIS as sexual slaves;
(c) recognize that the government has neglected to provide this House with an appropriate plan and the corresponding action required to respond to this humanitarian crisis;
(d) support recommendations found in the June 15, 2016, report issued by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria entitled, “They came to destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis”; and
(e) call on the government to (i) take immediate action upon all the recommendations found in sections 210, 212, and 213 of the said report, (ii) use its full authority to provide asylum to Yazidi women and girls within 30 days.
Conservative Member of Parliament, Michelle Rempel, Official Opposition Immigration critic

Confoundingly, the Canadian left believes that the current Liberal-led government of sunny-face, selfie-addicted Justin Trudeau is a humanitarian camp devoted to extending themselves to better the lives of the unfortunate. What group of people at the present time could be deemed more unfortunate than the Iraqi Yazidis whom Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have targeted for extinction on the basis that Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his jihadi temporal agents of the divine have identified as apostates, deserving of death.

A migrant child stands next to a placard reading 'Please save the Yazidi people from genocide' at the Moria detention center during a visit of Pope Francis in Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos, on April 16. A religious freedoms group wants the Canadian government to take action and rescue at 400 Yazidi women, who have been raped and tortured.  (ARIS MESSINIS / AFP/Getty Images)

To be clear, death for Yazidi men and boys above a certain age, but for girls and women another fate awaits; a life of being held in contempt and constant rape and sexual slavery. So while tens of thousands of Yazidi men were slaughtered their wives and daughters were taken into slavery, as permitted by certain passages of the Koran, the Hadiths and other sacred writings of Islam promoting sexual license for the Islamist victors of conflict as a symbol of virtue in claiming bounties.

The previous Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which had committed itself on behalf of Canada, to rescuing refugees of violence perpetrated upon Sunni Syrians by their own Shiite-led government wanted to focus on refugees from all the territories administered by ISIL in Syria and Iraq. But refugees had to be selected from among those whom the United Nations deemed to be refugees and of whom background checks had been done by the United Nations.

The Harper government had a wish to focus primarily on rescuing the most vulnerable among those whom Islamic State threatened. Their focus narrowed to the rescue of Christians and of Yazidis of whom some 700,000 lived mostly in northern Iraq. The Yazidis who survive Islamic State predations have found haven with the Kurds, the most formidable foes of ISIL. Minority groups such as Christians and Kurds are protected by the Kurds who accept them as equals.

But because they have found haven in the Kurdish parts of Iraq the United Nations does not deem them to be refugees but rather internally displaced persons. They are not designated as refugees and have no formal papers provided to them by the UN, making them inadmissible for refugee status in countries like Canada, and it is this situation that the Harper government pointed out to be a hindrance to rescuing them under the UN refugee selection process.

The Trudeau government, on the other hand, refused to give priority to Christian and other non-Muslim minorities; their stance was that they were prepared to give all refugees equal status, even though under the circumstances Yazidis were not considered to be refugees. They were, however, oppressed, persecuted, faced slavery, mass rape and mass murder. It was not until a Conservative Member of Parliament took up their plight to canvass Members of Parliament representing all political parties that the tide was turned.

Even when the United Nations finally declared through the release of a UN-sponsored report, They came to destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis, that Islamic State was committing genocide, Canada's Foreign Minister was reluctant to echo that declaration, which would have meant committing to focusing on the rescue and immigration acceptance as refugees of the Yazidis desperate to find a place of haven and a future for themselves and their children.

Finally, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was shamed into acquiescing, admitting that a war crime of genocide was being committed against the Yazidis. And Canada committed to bringing in Yazidi women and children and Yazidi families to give them the opportunity of finding new lives in Canada. A unanimous Commons vote on October 25 committed to a rescue of Yazidi women and girls within 120 days of the vote.