Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the officials for being here.
I agree with my colleague Mr. McLean when he said we should not give false hope to the people who are already in that devastating situation.
Deputy Minister, one of my constituents, Ms. Bessan Khalaf, who is present at today's committee meeting, has 15 immediate family members in Gaza: parents and siblings, plus their families, spouse and kids. They have all applied. Six of them had received recourse through the special Gaza stream. A few also received biometric instructions, but they were not able to complete them as they had to go to Egypt to do them and nobody was allowed to leave or cross the borders. Then one member of the family, my constituent's brother, escaped to Egypt by paying a certain amount of money. Now that he's in Egypt, he has been advised by your office to apply for a regular TRV from Egypt and to flag it as a critical urgent case through the web request form.
How is it that someone can pay money to cross the border from Gaza to Egypt but our government can't get Canadians' families out? Who is making money off those peoples' backs?
Who is making money off the backs of those refugees? Why hasn't our government been able to get the same access to the list of the people permitted to exit Gaza when other countries have been able to do so? Finally, do all Canadians have the same status? Do we all have the same privilege?
Thank you.