The provincial NDP are calling on the provincial government to put pressure on the federal government to help Afhgans resettled in the province and in the coming months.
Official Opposition Immigration Critic Alena Young was joined by Zohra Bahrami in front of the legislature on Friday to once again ask for support from the two levels of government.
Bahrami, currently a University of Regina student originally from Afghanistan is asking the federal government to help with out with the relief efforts that her family and fellow Afghans. “I want to plead with the government of Canada to work around their policies, their rules and regulations, do whatever it takes to best accommodate who are stuck inside of Afghanistan and the people who are outside to accommodate with whatever they need.”
The lack of updates from the federal government has been really frustrating for Bahrami. “My immediate family, one family who is stuck inside of Afghanistan and another family who are in Pakistan they both have applied in the Humanitarian program, they haven’t heard anything back, I haven’t heard anything back when I checked back up for updates.”
Bahrami added ” My family has been hiding two days prior to the Talibans takeover of Kabul, so they just have been at home, not in one home actually, they’ve been going place to place to keep up with their hiding and there isn’t a lot of discussions in the moment about the things that are going on.
Young said “Saskatchewan has about 3% of Canada’s population, but I see no reason why we can’t see 6% of these people, about 1,200 Afghans- resettled here.
The NDP MLA for Regina University noted she sent a letter to Immigration and Career Training, Jeremy Harrison, but she hasn’t received a response from her counterpart.
