Senator Marilou McPhedran participates in a news conference, Tuesday, April 26, 2022 in Ottawa. McPhedran denies falsifying travel documents for Afghan refugees. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
OTTAWA – A Manitoba senator who denies falsifying travel documents says several cabinet ministers were aware of her choice to send letters to Afghans to help them flee as the Taliban took over the country, and that no one told her to stop.
The Globe and Mail reports that 150 Afghans who received letters from Sen. Marilou McPhedran are now stranded in an Albanian hotel room, unable to come to Canada as refugees because the government deems their documents inauthentic.
McPhedran told the House of Commons immigration committee today that then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan and Maryam Monsef, women and gender equity minister at the time, knew she was planning to send documents to Afghan refugees to help them get out of the country in 2021.
She says she believes former foreign affairs minister Marc Garneau and Marco Mendicino, who was then immigration minister, also knew.
The Immigration Department had issued several authentic letters directly to Afghan nationals who were eligible to come to Canada to help them clear checkpoints in Afghanistan, but didn’t allow third parties to issue them on the government’s behalf.
McPhedran says she was given a template for a visa facilitation letter by Sajjan’s then-chief of staff to help Afghans clear checkpoints to leave Afghanistan.
McPhedran says her office sent the letters directly to Afghans and she also shared the template with “trusted advocates,” and she didn’t keep track of how many were issued.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 19, 2023.
