OTTAWA — As the Conservatives push for more help for Yazidis fleeing persecution at the hands of Islamic militants, new information suggests their efforts to do so while in government were minimal. Data from a controversial audit of Syrian refugee cases ordered by former prime minister Stephen Harper late last spring reveals of 546 people reviewed, three identified as Yazidi, a Kurdish minority group which practices an ancient faith. Immigration officials also told a House of Commons committee Monday that Yazidis were never highlighted specifically by the Conservatives as a group that should be prioritized for resettlement, even with their targeted approach to resettlement. The data and the testimony Monday give both the Liberal and the Conservative arguments over Canada's refugee policy some new energy after the file was a political flashpoint for most of 2015.

A displaced boy from the minority Yazidi sect poses for a photographer at a refugee camp, Jan. 2. (Photo: Ari Jalal/Reuters) The Conservatives' areas-of-focus policy drew heavy criticism, with many arguing it flew in the face of international obligations that see the UN choose who is resettled. The Tories argued that they were using the UN criteria, but were drilling down within them to ensure the most vulnerable were helped. The Tories put religious minorities in that category, but the data obtained by The Canadian Press under access-to-information laws suggest the vast majority of landed Syrians whose files were audited were Sunni Muslim, as is the refugee population at large. About three dozen were Christian. That few Yazidis arrived under their watch is a fact the Tories haven't dwelled on as they have been pushing the Liberals for more action. Since 2014, the Yazidis have been subject to forced conversions, murder, rape and enslavement at the hands of Islamic militants — actions recently declared a genocide by the UN. Resettlement for Yazidis should be priority: Tories The Tories now say that declaration should put them at the front of the line for resettlement to Canada. There are, however, numerous policy roadblocks, especially the fact that most are in their home country of Iraq and as such aren't eligible for resettlement. Another challenge is that while a person's faith or ethnicity might be the reason he or she became a refugee, it's not something the UN looks at when selecting people for resettlement. In fact, the UN expressly asks states not to prioritize groups that way because the most important criteria must be vulnerability. The Liberals repeatedly asked Immigration Department officials Monday about the policies of the previous government. While in opposition, they had argued that selecting refugees on the basis of religion — as the Tories were believed to be doing — was wrong. The Liberals have resisted calls to do so with the Yazidis. But the Tories never gave specific instructions to track Yazidis, the officials said.