Mr. Speaker, the second petition I would like to present is about the plight of religious minorities, in particular Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan. The petitioners have a very specific ask for the Minister of Immigration to use the powers granted to him to create a special program to help persecuted minorities in Afghanistan to allow them to apply directly to come to Canada. This is different from, and in addition to, an announcement the minister made that was helping a certain percentage of those already in India.
The petitioners are asking the minister to address the issue of direct application for those in Afghanistan. It further calls on the Minister of Foreign Affairs to raise the persecution faced by this community with her Afghan counterpart and to strongly advocate for more to be done to protect them.