Mr. Speaker, just a few weeks ago, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism was touting Canada as a haven for persecuted gays and lesbians, lauding his government's work to resettle 100 gay refugees from Iran. The Conservatives proclaimed that standing up for gay rights was a key plank of their foreign policy.
Yet now the government is refusing safe haven to a man from St. Vincent and the Grenadines who fled to Canada two years ago after being beaten so badly for being gay that he was left in a coma and brain damaged.
I ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs, why the hypocrisy?