Hello everyone,
I have bad news, unfortunately ...
I just saw a video report in the 6:00 pm telejournal of radio-canada tele (the french section of cbc, public television).
A handful of Afghan interpreters, already here with their close families, really a few, no more than ten according to the video, protested in front of the parliament in Ottawa to demand the acceleration of the processing of the requests of their extended families. They even threatened to go on hunger strike ... 3 days!
A few moments later, the video report explains that they were able to talk to Mendecino on zoom ... Then the report even showed a video extract where Trudeau responds directly to their concerns !!
In short, why am I telling you about this here, and what does it have to do with our cause?
1) The specific reaction of Mendicino and Trudeau means only one thing = They will concentrate their efforts for these few hundred performers (The report spoke of about 180 people, already here with an old program from Harper's time !!!!), and will focus all of ircc's resources on the Afghans = Which means a few more years of waiting for us.
2) The most important thing I wanted to highlight is the power of lobbing and media pressure that we can and must do, at the risk of waiting for years to come, or worse, to see our cases returned with a O'toole government: A handful of people took advantage of the present context (federal elections to come) to highlight their cause, a dozen people at most gathered in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa ... And that had an impact!
Keep quiet if you are ok with an additional wait of several years, see a decade or more if O'toole wins please his anti-immigration electrant .. I can understand the economic arguments of some in favor of the conservatives, but for the moment I am looking at the boat on which I am embarking: A request for citizenship pending for almost 2 years .. . and other people even more. We must be objective and realistic: A victory O'toole will be a catastrophe and a cataclysm for all of us here who wait).
... Keep silent! ... The world is a nice universe of telletubies where everyone is nice, and your business will be done on its own if you don't say anything! ... Well done !
Ps: I will share here the link of the video report in the CBC-radiocanada French telejournal as soon as it becomes available ... I imagine that they will also make a video in English ...
, Piotr.
