Afghanistan committee  My understanding was that the government had partnered with some organizations on the ground that were going to be referral organizations. I believe one was Front Line Defenders, and I believe there was another organization. They were designated as referral agencies that would id

Afghanistan committee  Yes. All of our recommendations to the government so far have asked for the waiver of that recognition status. It is a huge barrier. There are other examples. We get calls every day because of our connections, the fact that we've been working in this area for a long time and the

Afghanistan committee  Yes.

Afghanistan committee  Certainly, any administrative barriers that have been put in place need to be alleviated. As I said, we were able to bring in 25,000 Syrians in 100 days. As far as we know, there are about 7,000 people who have come to Canada so far. There is a dire humanitarian catastrophe. Th

Afghanistan committee  Yes, definitely. They did it for the interpreters who came and their families. They expanded the definition of extended family. If it could be extended, it would be great, but we understand that the Canadian government has been expediting some of these family reunification cases.

Afghanistan committee  We've been asking for this to ensure that they open up the ability of Afghans from inside Afghanistan to seek resettlement. There was a short window where they had opened it, and then it was unclear as to why, but they shut it out. It's very important, and I can give an example.

Afghanistan committee  I believe it was in October. There was a two-week window when we were informed they were going to allow the vulnerable Afghans to seek resettlement, and then a couple of weeks later, we found out that it was no longer available.

Afghanistan committee  Thank you so much for your support of our organization. In terms of women, as Mr. Amiri has indicated, food scarcity is one of the biggest problems. It's imperative to get aid inside Afghanistan through independent trusted NGOs and multilateral organizations. There are a lot of

Afghanistan committee  We have been writing letters. Since the fall, we've had a meeting with Minister Fraser. We had a meeting with him in December. We've requested meetings with Minister Sajjan and Minister Joly, but we haven't received any meetings yet, but we met with the Minister of Immigration in

Afghanistan committee  We raised the issue about the timeline, because there are a lot of Afghans who are in immediate need, and the timeline that has been set to bring these 40,000 Afghans is 2023. We urged him to find a way to expedite the process and make it sooner. With the Syrian refugees, we brou

Afghanistan committee  Sure.

Afghanistan committee  We started to get involved in the summer, in June, when we were approached by women parliamentarians and activists from inside Afghanistan. They had written a letter asking us to bring to the attention of the Canadian government the dire situation they were in. We wrote to the go

Afghanistan committee  Those meetings were more generally debriefing meetings with a group of ministers, including ministers from Immigration, International Development and GAC.

Afghanistan committee  Certainly, as a women's group, we were getting calls daily from women who were inside Afghanistan. They were fearing for their lives. We were trying to bring attention to those women and the risks and were trying to get the Canadian government to help them, whether through resett

Afghanistan committee  Because the situation unfolded so quickly, I think they were actually caught off guard in terms of the magnitude of what was going on and the fast manner in which the foreign troops, including Canada's, evacuated. Some of the people we tried to help were able to get out through o