Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Minister, thank you for being with us today.
I want to start by recapping some of what I've heard.
I think it's fair to say that all of us here at this committee, and you, Minister, want to make sure that we bring as many refugees as we can from Afghanistan to Canada as soon as possible. The government set a commitment to bring in 40,000 refugees by the end of 2023. There are 11,500 who have arrived. There are 10,000 more, if I understand you correctly, Minister, who have been approved but are in Afghanistan and need to get out of the country to be able to come to Canada. That is a total of 21,500 who have either come to Canada or have been approved and are still in Afghanistan and need to find their way out. To reach our target of 40,000, that leaves a balance of about 18,500.
We've heard that there are millions of Afghan refugees who have fled Afghanistan. Can you explain why we've not been able to meet the target of 40,000 as yet?