The federal Immigration Department has beefed up human resources in Beirut in order to prioritize immigration applications from Lebanon as fears of a larger conflict embroiling the Middle East loom, a senior government source told CBC News.
The official, who CBC News is not identifying because they have not been authorized to publicly comment on the matter, also said the department is mulling various policies, such as allowing Lebanese passport holders in Canada to freely extend their stays here should fighting in Lebanon escalate.
“Those kinds of measures are being prepared for Lebanese nationals in Canada right now,” the official said.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday morning, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly had alluded to more resources in Lebanon.
“We’ve increased the number of diplomatic staff and people working for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in order to make sure that we could offer the right service to Canadians that want to leave,” she said.
As for paperwork for foreign nationals trying to come to Canada, the official said the extra human resources are necessary for faster processing of security screenings like fingerprint tests, or to help answer questions from those who aren’t Canadian citizens or permanent residents but still hope to claim one of the commercial flights out of Lebanon booked by the federal government.
Defence Minister Bill Blair says the uptake of commercial flights out of Lebanon by Canadians has been ‘steady.’ Ferial Elkadri, a Canadian in Lebanon who is planning to leave the country for Jordan with her family, says her husband and son are not Canadian, which may complicate her efforts to get them on the flight.
“If you’re a spouse who’s not a citizen, get a Temporary Resident Visa, and those kinds of things,” the official said.
The flights to Canada are open to immediate family members of Canadian citizens or permanent residents, such as spouses or dependent children, but they’re required to go through extra paperwork and documentation processes.
As for Lebanese citizens currently in Canada who want to extend their stays, the official pointed to similar government policies that were enacted after Oct. 7, 2023, for Israelis and Palestinians who were in Canada at the time.
Evacuation would prioritize Canadians
However, should the current fighting in Lebanon escalate and necessitate a mass evacuation, the official said Canadians and permanent residents would be given priority.
“It’s prepared to click in an instant,” the official said. “There are still commercial flights coming in and out of Beirut.”
In 2006, during previous fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the government of Canada evacuated nearly 15,000 people from Lebanon by sea.
Back then, Israel targeted Rafik Hariri International Airport in the Hezbollah-controlled part of the Lebanese capital, saying the militant group was receiving shipments of weapons there and forcing the airport to shut down.
The NDP has been calling on Ottawa to evacuate Lebanese Canadians for weeks, as the government did in 2006. Two Canadians were among the 1,000 people the Lebanese government says have been killed in the last week since Israel began its latest airstrikes against Hezbollah.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says Canada’s goal right now ‘is to make sure there is no full-scale war in the Middle East.’ Joly continues to urge Canadians remaining in Lebanon to ‘please take the seat’ to leave the country.
The government has instead been urging Canadians to leave on commercial flights using tickets it has block-booked on airlines.
On Tuesday, Global Affairs Canada said only about a third of the 1,700 Canadians in Lebanon contacted by the department and offered seats on outgoing flights have taken the government up on the offer. Passengers who do take the flights are still responsible for covering the $330 US cost of the tickets.
“We’re following that situation extremely closely and obviously extremely concerned about what’s going on,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told media last week about the situation in Lebanon. But he said he can’t publicly comment on the scenarios his department was working on.
There are about 45,000 Canadians living in Lebanon, according to estimates by Global Affairs Canada.