When I was first appointed to this position, Afghanistan quickly became the initiative on which I spent the vast majority of my time. One of the biggest bottlenecks to having people move was the lack of ability to conduct biometric assessments to understand and assure that the people who were coming to Canada passed the ordinary security screening process. The lack of a presence on the ground made that exceptionally difficult.
We came up with an alternative plan that gathers whatever information we can find about a person—we call it an “enhanced biographic screening”—to allow them to move to the next step in the process. That will get us to a position where we can allow a person to move outside of Afghanistan, should they have the ability to do so. We can then complete the biometric screening process there, so we don't compromise on the security screening. It also doesn't delay the ability of a person to come through the process and to exit Afghanistan, which they're so desperate to do under extraordinary circumstances.