It's not often I do this, but I'm going to agree with my New Democratic colleague. I know that's a shocker, but I was going to say many of the same things. The member is absolutely right.
This motion was passed on October 7. There have been many opportunities. The ministers have exempt staffers and directors of parliamentary affairs who literally know when the schedules of committees are. It's not a surprise that we meet between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., or between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. There are set times in the week when that happens, and they've been offered many opportunities to appear. The immigration minister, to his credit, appears at this committee when it's requested, but on this particular file, like Ms. Kwan said, this is supposedly an all-of-government approach and because there is a foreign affairs component to it, the global affairs minister should be here. There is a component for many other departments and there's ministerial accountability and responsibility attached to it.
In the calendar, when you go through it, there are only four free days. I noticed that the main estimates are not in here, and the supplementary (C)s are not in here, where we should dedicate time for the Minister of Immigration to return to the committee and explain the spending, both for the end of the last fiscal year and for the upcoming fiscal year. That doesn't leave a lot of extra opportunities for other ministers to come in with their officials to explain themselves.
If the ministers haven't been willing to provide their time to appear before this committee—because usually in my experience here on Parliament Hill, committees request the appearance of a minister, and most ministers feel that they have an accountability role to play for any parliamentary committee—they could be summoned as well. If they have to be summoned, they should be summoned to appear by the committee. We're asking for accountability.
We haven't reached a target of 40,000 Afghans brought to the country yet. I have emails in my inbox from people all over Pakistan, people in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan who have fled the Taliban and are hiding and have made applications to IRCC that are not being processed. Some of them either worked directly for the Canadian government or worked for a third party organization that was partially funded by the Canadian government in Afghanistan.
It's incumbent upon us. These ministers have an accountability that has to be honoured not only for the parliamentary committee reviewing their department but also other parliamentary committees. We're not lesser parliamentarians because we're not directly involved in the day-to-day policy issues that they have. If they're refusing to appear or they are making it extra difficult, this committee doesn't have that many extra days to consider it. We have four according to what the calendar indicates here, four free days, and we have other motions to consider. Like I said, we have estimates and supplementary (C)s, and if they're refusing to appear, then this committee should consider simply summoning the ministers one by one to appear before the committee when it's convenient for us.
Thank you.