Conservatives Urge Parliamentary Probe Into Government Spending on Repatriating Canadian ISIS Women

The Conservative Party is calling for the parliamentary public safety committee to investigate the federal government’s expenditure of at least $170,000 on repatriating from Syria Canadian women who had joined the ISIS terrorist group.

The letter signed by Conservative MPs asks the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to convene immediately and investigate Global News’ reporting showing that Ottawa spent more than $170,000 for returning the eight women who had previously travelled to Syria to join ISIS.

The federal government paid for the women and their children to return to Canada in 2022 and 2023. The expense reports, released under the Access to Information Act, showed that expenditures, which also included expenses by Canadian officials travelling to retrieve the women, included business-class flights, stays at the Montreal Airport Marriott hotel, and food and beverage items such as $24 sandwiches, $95 worth of wine, chocolate bars, and Timbits.

The Conservative MPs said in the letter addressed to Committee Chair and Liberal MP Jean-Yves Duclos that it was “appalling” that these items were bought for the women, particularly given that Canadians are dealing with high food and housing costs. “The Liberal government must answer for why they spent $170,000 on lavish costs to repatriate reported ISIS criminals,” the Tory MPs said.

The committee chair has not said whether the committee will be reconvened to examine the issue. Parliamentary rules dictate that four members of a committee representing at least two parties must request a meeting for a clerk to set one up. As the public safety committee comprises of five Liberal MPs, four Conservative MPs, and one Bloc Québécois MP, if the Liberal MPs oppose holding the meeting to scrutinize the Liberal government, the Bloc MP has to side with the Conservatives for the Tories’ requested meeting to occur.

Global Affairs Canada said that the $170,000 revealed in the documents did not encompass the full costs associated with repatriating the women, and that the department is still consulting with a foreign government about releasing that information.

The women had travelled from B.C., Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec to Iraq and Syria to live under ISIS rule. However, when ISIS fell to Kurdish fighters backed by an international coalition that included Canada, Ottawa agreed to return the women and their children to Canada. The women’s families had launched a case in the Federal Court demanding they be returned, arguing there was no evidence they were tied to ISIS and no justification for allowing them to remain in Kurdish-run detention camps.

Global Affairs declined to answer questions about the expenses or reveal the full costs associated with repatriating the women, saying that the department had “assumed certain immediate costs to support the safe return and well-being of the women and children repatriated to Canada.”