Senator to appear before parliamentary committee over inauthentic docs for Afghans

By The Canadian Press on April 19, 2023.

OTTAWA – A Manitoba senator who denies falsifying travel documents for Afghan refugees will be grilled by a committee of parliamentarians over allegations her actions may have left refugees stranded.

Sen. Marilou McPhedran, a lawyer and human rights advocate, gave a tearful speech in the Senate on Feb. 2, saying she was given a template for a visa facilitation letter by the chief of staff to the then-defence minister.

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.

The situation was referred to the RCMP, which has determined it cannot pursue a viable investigation.

The Globe and Mail reports that 150 Afghans who received such documents from McPhedran have spent the last year and a half stranded in an Albanian hotel room, unable to come to Canada because the government deems their documents inauthentic.

McPhedran sits as an unaffiliated senator after she left the largest bloc in the upper chamber in 2021, when her fellow members of the Independent Senators Group called for a meeting to decide whether to expel her from their ranks.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 19, 2023.

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