Afghanistan committee  Absolutely.

Afghanistan committee  Do it in a third party country. It's already happening. Have a plan if those folks don't pass, because you're going to have a really hard time dropping them back off in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan committee  I will consider it, yes.

Afghanistan committee  We're doing chartered air flights right out of the Kabul airport.

Afghanistan committee  My question would be “What's the incentive?” What type of incentives are we currently putting in place inside of our government departments to get people to be more efficient?

Afghanistan committee  Let me answer my question, please, Mr. Dong.

Afghanistan committee  How do we improve it? There have to be incentives within our government departments to improve that, and right now, what I have observed within the IRCC during the application process is that there is very little accountability between different levels of management within government bodies.

Afghanistan committee  Absolutely it was because of COVID—

Afghanistan committee  Well, the folks are still there. Their applications still need to be processed. I can tell you, as a matter of fact, that most of them are backlogged. I don't know where the backlog is. I can't see into that. I would ask this committee to figure out where that backlog is and get it taken care of so that these applications start moving through.

Afghanistan committee  I find it interesting that Ms. Damoff and Mr. Dong had quite a large preamble at the beginning. I did not even get to speak to Ms. Damoff.

Afghanistan committee  It was quite chaotic trying to get folks into the airport. There was a gate that would open; people could move into the airport, and they would close the gate. It was simple. It was basically that, but we didn't really find out about it until afterwards. Folks were being told to come to any gate and wait, but the Canadian forces were primarily manning one gate, the Baron gate.

Afghanistan committee  Well, IRCC was the department that applications would go through, and they were the ones who were calling people to the airport by email. The Canadian Forces were, in my understanding, manning the gates, and GAC had to approve the people who would get inside. So you had three different departments that weren't all talking to each other.

Afghanistan committee  One of the biggest issues here has nothing to do with manpower. I believe it has to do with the outdated IT system that the Government of Canada operates upon. During my time working on this, I learned a ton about how these applications actually got processed inside the IRCC. Every Canadian and every Afghan should know that the portal you fill out online actually just generates an automated email that some human has to answer.

Afghanistan committee  Yes. My number one priority is much greater than this. It's for the members of Parliament who represent all the citizens of Canada to start working better together. I actually find it embarrassing watching everybody on TV. The rhetoric going back and forth across the House of Commons is embarrassing.

Afghanistan committee  I can speak French, but I can answer better English.