Thank you, Chair.
Minister, I'm aware of the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. As the wife of a U.S. veteran who served in Afghanistan, this issue cuts close to home for me.
My questions relate to recommendation three of the report and the creation of an emergency mechanism to enable fast evacuations of persons in a crisis zone. I'm trying to ascertain if one already formally existed but wasn't disclosed to Parliament.
Evidence exists that a parliamentarian and others within the government felt that the government was so woefully unprepared to evacuate persons from Afghanistan that they resorted to issuing fraudulent documents and used a process by which political staff and a senator got to choose who got on evacuation planes. With nearly one million Afghans who expressed interest in being allowed into Canada, this undermined the fairness of Canada's immigration policies, while putting Afghans like the family of my constituent at risk. My constituents were involved in this, as you know, and will be the object of some of my questions.
Minister, on July 26, you wrote a response to a letter that I wrote on July 7. The subject of the letter related to a family of Afghan nationals my office was assisting, who had allegedly been issued official documentation stating they had been granted a visa to enter Canada. They received this documentation from Senator Marilou McPhedran. In your response, you stated that these letters were inauthentic and that your department had undertaken a review of the matter.
In your investigation, was it determined whether the minister at the time, any IRCC department official or any of the IRCC minister's office staff ever advised any third parties—including ministerial office staff or parliamentarians—to issue official travel documentation to Afghan nationals for the purposes of allowing them access to evacuation flights or to otherwise gain entry into Canada?