Mr. Chair, honourable members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
I do not have much time, but I will do my best. I am very honoured, as a refugee, to appear before you today to speak to the importance of the motion on the initial interview that seeks to replace the 28-day period with an 8-day period.
Based on my personal experience, I will describe the barriers that would have prevented me from being ready for that interview. I came to Canada with physical and psychological wounds, as you can see, as a result of violence in my home country.
First and foremost, I needed psychological support to learn how to accept things I could not change and be able to speak about my experiences. In that sense, it would have been nearly impossible for me to have been forced to talk about what I experienced immediately after arriving in Canada.
The legitimate legal obligation to recount my story aside, remembering and recounting what I experienced is not something I enjoy doing. These new legal realities are basically a burden. They were for me and only added to the existing burdens of my daily life. I needed to build a certain amount of confidence in myself and others.
Furthermore, Canada was a new land to me, a new place to learn and understand. When I arrived, I experienced intense culture shock, characterized by what I saw, what I heard and what surrounded me. Almost immediately, I wanted to learn how my new neighbours thought and to fit in. That desire become a sort of healing balm in helping me recover from my violent past.
Depriving me of the opportunity to heal my psychological wounds by forcing me to focus on an interview within eight days of arriving would not have helped my recovery.