I think the context has been very challenging with COVID, with responding to all sorts of unanticipated events. So I would reframe your question to say what would I like to see the government do. I would like to see the government do what it showed it could do when it pulled out the stops to support Syrian refugees in 2015 or, even frankly, what it has done in a matter of weeks for Ukrainian refugees. There are many things that can be done to streamline processes.
I know some of you are very familiar with all of these details, but to Mr. Baker's question, there are Afghan refugees with UNHCR designation who are in Turkey, who are in India, who are in Indonesia, whom we can sponsor tomorrow. The problem is that the people who escaped in August are stuck in limbo.
I have an employee who is Afghan. She came to Canada on a student visa two years ago. She's a Ph.D. student. Her partner is a Hazara refugee who's been in Indonesia. We can sponsor him. Her family is stuck in Pakistan. We can't do anything for them. Her sister was accepted at a Canadian post-secondary institution just like she was, and yet she was denied a student visa because they did not believe she would return to Afghanistan. I'm sorry, but it makes no sense.
My orientation is also very much driven by the needs of Canada's economy because the boomers like me are retiring or dying—I hope to do the first before the second—and our employers large and small are desperate for workers, desperate for highly educated, highly skilled workers, but also for general labour, and there are huge opportunities I think to create pathways for refugees that will make them self-sufficient in a short period of time.