Like hungry wolves, opposition MPs are circling Immigration Minister Lena Diab, who is under fire for approving a visa for an Iranian soccer official with ties to a terror group and for the shambolic state of the International Students Program.
Coordinated Attacks on Diab
The Conservatives are launching coordinated attacks on Lena Diab, the immigration minister. In an unsentimental social media post, the party's immigration critic, Michelle Rempel Garner, called for the minister to be fired after her department granted travel documents to Mehdi Taj, a senior Iranian soccer official with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, a listed terror group. Rempel Garner noted the government's lack of confidence in its own minister when her question in the House was answered by one of Diab's colleagues.
Minister's Defense in Committee
Diab was back as a witness before the immigration committee on Monday morning, accompanied by her new deputy minister, Ted Gallivan, who provided support and illumination. The minister was there to defend the indefensible: her department's performance on the International Students Program, the subject of a highly critical report by the auditor general last month. Karen Hogan's report highlighted 153,000 foreign students who were potentially non-compliant with immigration rules.
Diab updated the committee on the whereabouts of those students, stating that 64 per cent still had valid status, 14 per cent (21,420) have submitted asylum claims, and 22 per cent (33,660) are presumed to have left the country but may have overstayed their permits. Gallivan admitted that no entry/exit system exists to provide that information for sure, but the department is developing a pilot project with the Canada Border Services Agency to find out exactly who is in the country.
Criticism from Conservatives
Conservative MP Costas Menegakis expressed disbelief that, after being in power for 11 years, the Liberals have no such system in place. Diab mused, 'I wondered the same thing. But it's been the same throughout Canada's history.' She almost accidentally hit on a plausible excuse, as Menegakis should have known as a former member of Stephen Harper's Conservative government. In 2008, then auditor general Sheila Fraser pointed out that the Conservatives had no idea how to locate 41,000 individuals with enforceable removal orders because Canada did not monitor the exit of travellers from the country. Since 2020, CBSA has required commercial airlines to provide details for all passengers leaving Canada and receives information for land travellers from U.S. Customs.
