QUESTION PERIOD — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Refugee Processing Backlog
May 10, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, last week we learned that a Saskatoon resident has been trying for 19 years to bring his parents, who fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan when the Taliban took over in the late 1990s, to Canada.
There was some progress last July: They rented a house for a year, furnished it and they have been paying for an empty house since. His parents, who now live in a refugee colony, have repeatedly sold everything every time there was a movement on their file. Senator Gold, this is not an isolated case. The family has been trying to reunite for over 19 years, well before COVID-19, and has been repeatedly let down by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. What is being done to ensure that applications do not fall through the cracks?
Thank you for your question. The government is well aware of the challenges in the application process. It is doing what it can to welcome those families to be reunited and refugees to arrive. The department has made some considerable progress, but is very aware that the challenges remain and is working as hard as it can to address them.
Senator Gold, there were over 110,000 refugee applications yet to be processed by April 26, and many applicants live in horrible conditions, often in a refugee colony, while they await a decision from the IRCC. These delays are putting LGBT refugees’ lives at risk on a daily basis and greatly affecting their mental health. To make matters worse, they are often persecuted by other refugees and the police. Senator Gold, these vulnerable refugees live in constant fear for their lives. Why is your government not doing more to help them? How much longer do they have to wait?
The government is doing everything that it can to help them, and regrettably it is taking far longer than any of us and anyone in the government would want. I can assure this chamber that the government continues to be focused on this and doing the best that it can.
