Mr. Speaker, during the humanitarian crisis associated with the Israeli-Lebanese conflict in the summer of 2006, and following the earthquake in Haiti in 2009, our country allowed Canadian children to return accompanied by both their parents, even if they were not Canadian.

That is currently not the case for Canadian children in Syria, which has been at war since 2011. Why this double standard?

The only concession the government is making in theory—again, in theory—is that these children can be accompanied by one non-Canadian parent. Families are being separated.

Out of the 14 cases of Canadian children that I identified in Syria, only one family agreed to make such an application and to live with the separation imposed by the government. Even in that case, the mother's visa was denied. That is why I say “in theory” because in fact, the Conservative government is doing nothing for these Canadian children stuck in Syria.

The question is: what is the situation in Syria? It is a terrible humanitarian crisis. On January 10, 2014, the United Nations announced that it would no longer update the death toll, which it estimated had gone well beyond 100,000. In April 2014, the death toll is estimated at more than 150,000, according to Le Monde. The situation for the children is catastrophic and despicable. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of orphans.

On March 13, 2014, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict said that the number of children affected by conflict had doubled in one year and that Syria has become one of the most dangerous places on earth for children. Three million Syrian children are being deprived of an education.

In March 2014, the United Nations estimated that 9 million Syrians had left their homes because of the violence and that 2.5 million of them had taken refuge in neighbouring countries. Half of them are children.

Lebanon, which has a population of 4.8 million, has reportedly taken in a million refugees. Turkey and Jordan have reportedly taken in nearly 600,000 refugees each. Iraq has reportedly taken in nearly 220,000 refugees and Egypt just over 133,000.

During the summer of 2013, the government announced that it wanted to welcome 1,300 refugees here in Canada by the end of 2014 but that only 200 of those would be resettled by the government. The others would be the responsibility of individuals.

While the demand for asylum increased by 28% throughout the world in 2013, Canada became known for reducing the number of asylum seekers it accepted by nearly 50%. That is appalling.

We are all members of the same big human family, and we should be sharing the burden of others' suffering. Like Canadian children, Syrian children are our children. We need to open our hearts and oppose the violence that these children are experiencing.

Unfortunately, what I am seeing today is that this government lacks compassion and humanity when it comes to this unthinkable situation. I find that extremely sad.

Maria Mourani

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Adjournment Proceedings

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