My response would be that we have a handful of intermediary countries, the third countries.... An operation like that would look like landing in Kabul.
The only thing I believe that's really holding us back from bringing people directly from Afghanistan to Canada is biometrics. However, if we're only dealing specifically with intermediary countries, we have Pakistan at the moment. We also have the UAE, and they have the humanitarian city there. The UAE has agreed to take individuals from Afghanistan if they have a flight from Afghanistan to the UAE, to their humanitarian city. They're willing to do that if the Canadian government is willing to start assisting with some of the backlog within the humanitarian city. At the moment, there are several individuals in Afghanistan who have onward travel to Canada. They've accepted travel. They have a clear path of travel, and all that's standing in the way is a flight to pick them up and transport them to the UAE. The biometrics are done there. There is a consulate there, a high commission, and then they go onward to Canada.
I believe the only thing standing in the way really is the flight and just for Canada to maybe say that we'll help with the backlog. You had all these groups that jumped in. You had these non-profit groups that jumped in, the evacuation groups. They pick people up, they drop them off in the UAE and say, “Bye.” This is why we have a backlog there now.
We can use the humanitarian city. I have confirmation that we can use it. It's just a matter of maybe the IRCC saying, “Okay, we want categories. We'll take 100 orphans, 100 unaccompanied minors, 100 doctors,” or whoever they want. As long as they see somebody helping them with the backlog at the humanitarian city in the UAE, we are able and allowed to use the UAE as an intermediary country.
How they would get there is through a non-profit organization such as ours, or perhaps another credible one in Canada, such as Aman Lara, or whoever has flights. If the government is paying for the flights, funding the flights, because the cost to run a flight is something.... It's very difficult to raise those kinds of funds.
My answer is that it's a matter of having the funding, picking them up in Afghanistan and transporting them to the UAE.