Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the honourable members of the committee on the special situation in Afghanistan. Thanks for the opportunity given to me, my friends and my colleagues to bring forward to the committee our concerns and problems. I have two or three different conversations.
The first thing is that most of the points were covered by my friends, but I'm calling on the government, I'm calling on the federal government, I'm calling on the honourable Justin Trudeau and the honourable Minister of Immigration Sean Fraser to find safe passage for our families to leave Afghanistan. The government has to work with its international allies. It has to find safe passage for our families to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. We have been going through this problem for more than seven months and we have problems with IRCC; we have problems with the immigration office; we have problems with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and we have problems especially with the federal government. I call on the government, the IRCC and Sean Fraser, the honourable minister. We are tired of your wrong politics. We are tired of these politics in which our innocent families are being sacrificed. This needs to be a political stick, and the government and the honourable Minister of Immigration need to lead us with the right politics and in the right direction. This is not the right direction we are facing right now. They have to find us safe pathways. They have to put pressure on the Taliban, work with Qataris and put more resources in the country and the region to find safe pathways for our families' evacuation from Afghanistan.
The second thing is this. I again call on the honourable Minister of Immigration to accept, to admit, that he failed in this process. If he doesn't admit that he has failed in this process and this policy, how long will we have to wait to see our families? How long should we expect to have to wait to have the process? When will we witness one single family being en route to Canada? Why is this not happening? What exactly is going on that we don't know about? Where is the sensitive information? We are asking the Minister of Immigration to please be faithful to us, be truthful with us, be respectful with us, to treat us without fear and treat us with respect. We are veterans. We worked with the Canadian Forces shoulder to shoulder. We worked alongside the Canadian Forces. We were there with the Canadian missions, so don't leave us hopeless right now.
Also, I am calling on committee members to please ask the government and the IRCC why they are delaying this process. Why are the packages not getting approved even when there is not enough information? If there are missing documents, why are they not contacting the principal applicants and sending them information and asking for extra information? Why are they not getting back to our friends?
We went through hunger strikes, two hunger strikes, right in front of Parliament. Nobody came to us except for Mr. Holland and Jenny Kwan. We don't deserve to stay in that cold weather and rain and to raise our voices and have nobody pay attention to us. That is unfair.
I'm asking the government and the members of this committee to please talk with the IRCC office, talk with the IRCC representatives, ask them, question them in the government House about why they are delaying this process. What exactly is going on with this government? What exactly is going on with this government that it has the power and it does nothing? Why is it not finding another safe passage for our families? Why is it not bringing our families from Pakistan, who have been waiting more than three months? Why is it not assigning file numbers when we sent the packages more than six months ago? It has to accept and the honourable minister needs to accept and admit that he failed in this policy, that he dropped the ball, so we have to find a solution. We have to find the safe pathways and we have to work together. I'm calling on the honourable committee members here to work together for us and to find the safe pathways for our families and to pick up the ball where they dropped it.
This is all politics, and we are tired of the two-faced politics of this government. We are tired of the politics of the honourable Minister of Immigration. They don't require any single document from us. They're asking for extra documents. They're asking for extra emails. They're asking for extra information. They're sending email after email. They are bombarding us with paperwork.
Why are you not worried about our families' lives? You are worried about the paperwork. Move our families to the safe zone, and then do the paperwork.
Thank you.