This was happening right from the beginning of August until I believe August 27. People who had received a small amount of donation or funding from the Government of Canada and Afghanistan back in 2008 or 2012, they were getting out. For us, we were publicly known. I have the reference letters that would confirm that we were publicly known for our affiliation and representation of the Embassy of Canada. To this date we have not heard anything from the IRCC.
It was not only me, but so many of my colleagues were representing the embassy before different ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, the Presidential Palace, National Security Council, and local courts and municipalities in Afghanistan, dealing with landlords, local vendors. We are all publicly known. This is a time where you cannot really trust anyone. They can go to the Taliban and report you, say that they know this guy and he was working with the Canadian embassy in Afghanistan.
Here we are. As I said, there are people who had no ties with the Canadian government in Afghanistan, and they're already out, or at least they've received G numbers. In our case, there are those poor people who are still in hiding, and it's been 10 months. I'm not talking about normal routine immigration things, which I understand are time-consuming and need a lot of work. People's lives are at risk. They're in danger, and they've been in hiding for 10 months. I'm afraid they will not be able to do this for too much longer.
As I said, honestly, I have no words. How it is done, who is getting out based on what, what is really the criteria, how the decisions are made—I have no answers for that.