We live in an interconnected world, and events transpiring worldwide ultimately affects Canadians, whether we are speaking about economic trade, global prices of goods and commodities, knowledge and skills exchange, effects of climate change, disease transmission and control, natural disaster management, and others. Fulfilling our international obligations protects and serves the interests of Canadians.
People fleeing war, persecution or natural disasters face tremendous barriers to obtaining necessary travel documents. For this reason, I have been advocating for visa-free travel for urgent, life-and-death situations such as the war in Ukraine. I have also been advocating for the government to rescind the safe third country agreement because often, refugees cannot get to safety without first going to a third country. It is paramount that Canada has an adequately resourced immigration system that can act with flexibility and expediency in times of crisis without compromising national security standards.
As your Member of Parliament, I will fight to ensure Canada fulfills its humanitarian and environmental obligations as a member of the international community.
The status of 2,900 applications from Afghans vetted by the Department of National Defence (DND) remains a mystery, one month after senior DND officials testified that only 900 of 3,800 vetted applications had been approved by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) department.“That means that the government, the immigration department, has lost some [2,900] files,” NDP Immigration Critic Jenny Kwan told Global News.
“They cannot find them. They do not know where they are. And people’s lives are hanging in the balance because those applications are not being processed.”
