Announcer: This is the every lawyer presented by the Canadian Bar Association.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Welcome to The Every Lawyer a Canadian Bar Association podcast. I’m your host Julia Tétrault-Provencher. Since the fall of Kabul on August 15th daily reports have shared the alleged atrocities and serious human rights violations committed by the Taliban regime against Afghan civilians including women and girls, children, journalists, human rights defenders, members of parliament and any individuals who worked or supported western powers. Before this economic and humanitarian crisis the U.N. predicted that up to half a million Afghan would fee their homeland by the end of the year 2021. Alarmed by the situation the Canadian government has pled to welcome 40,000 Afghan refugees and have put in place special immigration programs and measures. 

One of them notably focusses on resettling Afghan nationals who are outside of Afghanistan and do not have durable solution in a third country. The program prioritises women leaders, human rights advocates, persecuted religious or ethnic minorities, LGBTI individuals or journalists. Despite these essential measures put in place concerns have been raised as to how those affected by the crisis could fully understand the system and effectively take advantage to the special programs that have been set up. To address this issue lawyers in the CBA immigration law section have put in place an initiative to provide pro bono services to those impacted by the situation in Afghanistan. 

Our guest today to discuss this service is Anna Kuranicheva. She is an immigration lawyer working at The Edmonton Community Legal Centre and Chair of the Immigration Law North Section of CBA’s Alberta branch. We’re going to take a break and we’ll be right back after the following message.

Ad: Hello Canadian Bar Association podcast listeners. The Institute of Research on Public Policy is proud to present the Policy Options Podcast. Join us weekly as we take a deep dive into a broad range of important and timely issues in Canadian public policy. We speak with experts on topics like western alienation, sick leave, reconciliation, the future of work and much, much more. Find the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast on your favourite streaming platform and at policyoptions.irpp.org.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Anna welcome to the podcast and thanks for being here with us today. You’re one of the 11 lawyers who have volunteered to provide services without charges to individuals affected by the crisis in Afghanistan. Can you tell us a bit more about these services?

Anna Kuranicheva: Yes good morning, it’s still morning in the beautiful province of Alberta as we are recording this. Yeah so I am one of the coordinators for the Immigration Section of the National Immigration Section for the Canadian Bar Association. Sometime in mid to late September our section decided to kind of organize a concerted effort to assist those who are affected by the unfolding and escalating crisis, humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. There was a lot of media coverage in terms of kind of like general news about the country and then stories highlighting individuals and families how they had been very adversely impacted. And so our section has a tradition of responding to such largescale disasters or crisis and so periodically in the past several years we would put out a call to our members to volunteer their services as lawyers. 

So those were pro bono initiatives. So in the past those services would range from consultations to application reviews, document notarizations or anything where like a lawyer would come in handy. And yeah and as I said those would be offered pro bono. So with that background we thought that we – like we’re all in Canada, we can’t sort of travel there on the ground, we don’t have the capacity to airlift anybody from a very dire situation. So the least we could do as lawyers to put or knowledge and skill and our ability authorization to practice law and provide our services at no cost to those who might need them. 

So as the initial coordinator for this initiative if I put out a call to our section members, and we had about 10 people that were available to be offering free legal advice, at least free consultation first so that it was – and I should probably say that it’s not everybody’s kind of committing to doing a lot of work or whatever unlimited amount of work at no charge but because the initiative was touted as pro bono. So it was conceived that at least a consultation would be offered as a bro bono service. And then if somebody needs help with applications, if there are any complexities and challenges arise, so then it would be determined on a case-by-based basis from that sort of like mid-point of further into the provision of service. 

And so then – so we have our CBA liaison assisted with putting together a dedicated webpage on the CBA website so the names of those lawyers were listed there. A number of lawyers, I would say half of them, were also those who themselves had staff at their practices who could speak one of the languages spoken in Afghanistan. And so that came to fruition in about late September and since then – so myself and let’s just say my – like I was also part of that group. So we have been receiving queries I would say almost every day from individuals from emails. Most of them come through email and so it appears from emails that those individuals are in Afghanistan or they would have fled and so they are asking about ways to immigrate to Canada to come to safety. 

Sometimes queries come from individuals and organizations in Canada and other countries who want to assist Afghanis and so they want to know more about how the current initiatives by the Canadian government work. Sometimes also we receive queries from those who have already applied and who have sent in the information the documents required by the federal government and they have not heard anything for months. So understandably people in volatile precarious situations like that would want to know what’s happening, when the next step will happen and how they can plan and in the meantime what they can do sort of to find any solutions, any extra solutions necessary to keep themselves and their families safe. 

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: OK yes and I hear that you said – so if other members were listening to you right now and they would like to join is it still possible to join the list of the 11 lawyers already participating to this initiative or no the list is closed and members can’t join? 

Anna Kuranicheva: No absolutely the list is open. Yeah so my information, my contact information is on that list so I am very easy to identify there, so if anybody would like to join to contribute with at least providing advice to those affected individuals initially then absolutely they can reach out to me and can add them to the list or I can give sort of like an update where sort of, you know, where we stand in terms of the getting the information from the government to know what to tell all these people who are contacting us [laughs].

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah do you the information, yeah for sure. And you said you receive queries everyday of individuals, and do you have roughly a number of individuals that have contacted you or your colleagues to use these services since it has been advertise on the website?

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah it’s a very good question. And also I was trying to figure out the number myself and then between myself and my colleagues who are in the list we realized that it’s – it would be very, very difficult because at some point it became apparent that the same individuals contact like multiple lawyers or they just go through the list because email makes it so easy, right, you prepare the content once and then you just copy [laughs] in different –

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Definitely yeah [laughs].

Anna Kuranicheva: – yeah in different emails to like 20 recipients. But let’s say for myself I – yeah so there would be – so since late September there would be at least one query daily.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Oh yeah, OK, OK so that’s [unintelligible 00:09:09].

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah and I would, like I would guess that it would be the same for others. Yeah and it might be more for those who have identified themselves on the website as speaking Dari or Pashtu. 

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah for sure. And it says also on the CBA’s page that some restrictions will apply, what are they exactly? 

Anna Kuranicheva: Well that’s in terms of providing services yeah, so for example if somebody contacts one of our lawyers and so they want to proceed with an application, let’s say they have a family members in Canada who might be willing to sponsor them to come to Canada, so there’s a special way to facilitate family reunification on humanitarian grounds where there are factors individual is not strictly defined as a family member under the immigration law which is to say not a spouse and not a child under 22 and unmarried, so like cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles. 

So then an application will be put together and then a special written request would have to be prepared to explain that these are not dependent family members, they are de facto family members and their circumstances are very sympathetic, exonerating and compelling and they deserve the exercise of this humanitarian discretion under the immigration law to allow this application. So this is the written request and then there is written evidence, sorry documentary evidence that has to be added outlining the nature of the relationship between the sponsor in Canada and these family members in Afghanistan; and evidence of the current adverse conditions in Afghanistan, approval of financial support for example between the two parties, communication exchanges sort of like an indication of how frequently and for how long they have been communicating. 

So all of that can become very time consuming so this is why the restriction on a sort of like a pro bono premise would come into play. So the initial consultation would be offered at no charge, maybe like a follow-up consultation. I myself have done this pro bono consultations first with the person inquiring from Canada and so then I would explain that there is this route with family sponsorship and so then the family member would be identified so I would tell them what needs to be done. And so then if they want to proceed then we give application forms, so then at that point – I haven’t gotten to that stage myself yet but if these people were to come to me and say “Yes we are ready, we want to try it” so as far as I am concerned. 

So like I might not be able to fully offer the service on a pro bono basis because it would become time and effort consuming, so for many other practitioners the situation would be similar and so then a sort of [unintelligible 00:12:09] arrangement could be figured out or there could be a more collaborative approach where the family of the individual, so they do their best with their form and they fill out as much as they can, sort of they draft the initial information to be put forward in writing to the government and so the lawyer would step in to provide feedback for revisions to add, sort of to improve what already had been drafted. 

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: OK and so I guess that can a bit of a challenge as well to deal with all the documents that have to be filled in and to make sure that you have proper follow-up with the people who are reaching out to you. And in terms of challenges do you have others that you have faced since you started to provide these services? For instance you said people are often on the move and how do you reach out to Afghan people, and actually for instance Afghan women who are parliamentarians or activists and who might be hiding in neighbouring countries and who might not always have access to internet. So how do you reach out to these people?

Anna Kuranicheva: So far email has proven to be the best means of communication. Yeah so as I said email and the online social media platform WhatsApp which somehow I myself did not really come into contact with it very much in Canada. Sort of in my circles it’s not used very much but it seems that maybe in some parts of the world, like some social media platforms are more widely utilized than others; so that is like a very common one. But with email it seems to be working – I guess it’s, like it’s not perfect and so the communication cannot be – like you cannot expect to receive a message when somebody says that, you know, like “I’ll try it.” 

But those people especially who are not in Canada so they would not be contacting us on somebody’s behalf. So they do try – they do find ways to come online periodically, so like I’m not fully sure what their access is and what kind of infrastructure, what kind of technical sort of practical barriers they might face, but like they are able to at the very least get on the internet and send emails and attach documents.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: OK, OK and what have been the response of the federal immigration department to your initiative has it been a challenge or has it been responsive?

Anna Kuranicheva: It hasn’t been challenged at all. We may have received sort of like a nod that [immigrate 00:14:41] that you are assisting, sort of whatever you can do. Then the main challenge for us lawyers who are providing advice at this point is to almost operate from the premise that these are the options and these are the only options and from what you are telling me you are not likely to meet the requirements for any of these options. And people often ask questions, you know, “Can this be done can somebody else like sponsor me?” So then the answer quite often is “No, so this is not possible, this is not possible, this is not possible yet.” Yeah so which we think is like valuable advice because it gives precise current like up to date information sort of that is clear, that is easy to understand to absorb. 

But like much of the information at this point is kind of like the information sort of like in the negative. Yeah so cannot do this, you cannot do something else, and sort of no you can’t apply yourself to be a refugee and no you can’t organize a group and have them bring you to Canada if you don’t have a refugee status yourself. No you cannot come under the initiative that those who assisted the Canadian government if you have not worked in any helping capacity with the Canadian government although there might have been some sort of Canadian connection there. 

So there have been advocacy efforts made by lawyers from, not just from CBA but from other organizations and sort of from other advocacy initiatives across Canada pressuring the government to ease the restrictions, to maybe set up other programs to speed up the processing because it’s also another problem that even those who are eligible that they fit into those kind of narrow categories who can be processed. So then the delays at this point it’s just very, very extensive. 

People – anecdotally we know that people – that Afghanis would have submitted their queries, submitted the required information documents in late August early September and they still barely received maybe like an acknowledgement of their submission and no indication about the further step or sort of the other timelines that would be attached. So they’re kind of like hanging in that limbo and in that sort of black zone of not having any information at all. 

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: OK, yeah so in that sense I guess do you have any other relief measures that you believe could be introduced by the government of Canada that you think should be taken into consideration to expand those narrow categories or to make sure that people who applied in August actually have an answer now. Yeah and do you have any example of measures that you think should be put in place?

Anna Kuranicheva: Well like one I mean – and of course like it’s easy sort of like for me to say well this is what should be done ideally [laughs].

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah no exactly, in a perfect world.

Anna Kuranicheva: [Unintelligible 00:17:52] sort of, you know, [unintelligible 00:17:55] and this decision sort of like a policy sort of inventor here [laughs].

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah [laughs].

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah but sort of speeding up the processing times because well immigration has never been fast and then pandemic slowed it down significantly in terms of yeah eligibility, admissibility assessments, documents receipts, documents, assessments from applicants. But here we are dealing with a very, very vulnerable group of people who are truly in a very precarious situation rightfully being afraid for their live, for their safety if they’re still in Afghanistan, so they are in hiding and quite often they have to move places and houses and wherever they stay very frequently and regularly. So kind of like, you know, a safer sort of context than just sitting and waiting and waiting while you get on with your life. 

It’s I guess comparatively sort of like more manageable. It’s still stressful with all those unknowns but sort of, you know, you wait for it to happen at some point and life goes on. Whereas for these people their lives are on hold and they are really, really depending on the responses from the Canadian government sort of as trying to grasp at straws and those straws are just kind of like not coming and they’re [laughs] desperately trying to stay afloat. 

So yeah definitely speeding up the processing of those who have already been determined as eligible so like for example those who have worked with the Canadian government before, so if they were invited to submit not really like a standalone application but they were invited to submit some biographical information, identify themselves, describe the role in which they had heled the Canadian government in Afghanistan, send any relevant documents; so that happened. So from that point the government should really be moving faster on those applications to facilitate the resettlement of those individuals to Canada. 

Also on the front of refugee resettlement, right now a big hurdle to many, many Afghanis is not having formal refugee status in whatever third world country they would escape to like for example Pakistan or Iran or Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. It’s very, very difficult to receive that formal refugee status like within a couple of months. The reasons are manifold, so for example in Pakistan – so the wait times even to be offered an interviewed with UNHRC United Nations High Commission for Refugees. So those wait times are quite extensive. 

There also seems to be quite a bit of confusion between what [UA 00:20:43] and HCR in Pakistan can do for Afghanis because sort of like superficially from the information that we glean from the UNHCR website is that those – so they say that those countries that have offered specific assistance to Afghanis. So they will be kind of dealing with resettlement initiatives on their own and the UNHCR is not involved and so they will not be processing those claimants. Whereas the Canadian government is saying well you do need that formal status as a refugee like in the country like Pakistan, you need to go to the UNHCR first. So it sort of becomes a bit of like vicious circle. 

So we are trying to ascertain like where actually, like where would the person go and why they should like throw their time and energies either to plead with the Canadian government or to really insist with the UNCHR saying “I need that formal refugee status so that the Canadian government can move ahead to facilitate my entry as a refugee.” Another problem is that in many of these neighbouring countries they are already very overburdened by the influx of Afghanis and refugees and Afghanistan generally, for many decades has not been a stable country and sort of periodically there would be these like outbreaks of like civil unrest and sort of political turmoil. 

And so there were major, major influxes of refugees periodically and so now their capacities have really been taxed and stretched and outstretched and so they have started closing borders. Now we are receiving reports for example that Iran is deporting Afghani refugees on mass and they are not welcome in countries like Tajikistan. Even sort of on a practical level they can’t find affordable places to live. They are denigrated, mistreated, receive the sort of foreigner’s alliance who come and sort of put additional burden on the local society. So in that kind of context it is also very difficult to get established as a refugee.

And if there is no UNHCR presence in a country like Iran where the Iranian government is responsible for giving this formal refugee status; well if they are deporting Afghanis back to Afghanistan then it is not likely they would deporting them with the formal positive decision on their refugee status. So all of this kind of, kind of like from these multiple Angles goes to the outcome that it is extremely difficult for Afghanis now to receive this formal refugee status. And if they have it under the Canadian immigration law they are not eligible for resettlement as refugees under two of the three major private sponsorship categories. 

And there are some hurdles for them to also be resettled as government-sponsored refugees. So for us lawyers sort of one of our current focal points of advocacy is to ask the government to remove this requirements, to suspend it temporarily at least in the context of trying to assist those vulnerable Afghanis. That they should be recognized as prima facie refugees given the conditions and the country and it’s like no secret and we don’t need to really dig for evidence that people who – that people of ethnic minorities, people from the LGBT demographic activities, those who have been sort of politically visible, socially visible, that they would be now in danger at the hands of Taliban. 

Yeah so the government should remove this requirement of having a formal refugee status. And so then what that hurdle is out of the way then of course it’s not the end of the process but at least the processing can be started and applications can be facilitated and they can move forward. But most important then this removal opens up to, opens up possibilities for anybody, basically any organization, any individual in Canada who has the desire, the means, sort of the capacity to assist, they can do so. For example one of the very common ways to bring refugee to Canada through private sponsorship is by so called group of give. 

And I believe this is unique to Canada, no other country has this kind of vehicle for private refugee sponsorship. So I am not fully sure if we are still unique but I know that Canada was like the pioneer to this initiative sort of in the world stage of refugee resettlement. So some jurisdictions might have replicated it already but Canada take credit for actually coming up with it. So that means that any group of five adults in Canada so over 18 Canadian citizens and permanent residents, they don’t have to have any family relation to a vulnerable person outside, they can just come together. 

They pull the – the have to meet the financial criteria, they have to live in an area where the refugee would be settled in Canada, sort of kind of like the same sort of municipality or sort of like the city or sort of the reasonable sort of like distance of the city. And so they would have to pledge financial support to the refugee and their family for the period of 12 months, and this would be financial support or a combination of minimum financial support and in kind of contribution for example free accommodation, furniture, like household items, like winter clothing.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah, yeah.

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah and so this would be – we think it would – we are very hopeful and we have good reasons to believe that it would open up sort of the door, sort of the hearts and the minds for people in Canada to assist. We are a very, like relatively we are a very well-resourced wealthy nation and so sort of relatively speaking it does not become too taxing, too exorbitant to take on a sponsorship for let’s say a group of five to be able to assist a family in this manner. But right now it is not possible if that individual, that family does not have a formal refugee status.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: I see. OK so that’s an important limitation that I did not know of and I’m sure many of our members and listeners did not know of either. And you’re doing some advocacy work right now, is there anything that our members can do regarding this advocacy work that you are doing with your colleagues, like is there something to sign, a petition or a letter that can be shared around?

Anna Kuranicheva: Well we have a group within our section that is putting together like a formal submission to the government yeah to outline that this would be one solution, like it’s a quick, like relatively, it’s a relatively quick and practical solution. And also I should say it’s very important to note that there has been precedent for it, so it’s not like we are sort of, you know, radical –

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah, yeah, yeah [laughs].

Anna Kuranicheva: – sort of legal activities here saying they’d like to suspend out laws and [laughs]. It was just like a really good sort of, you know, aspirational reason behind it. So this requirement has been already – was previously suspended for the resettlement effort in 2015/2016 where we had about 30,000 Syrian refugees brought to Canada and they were brought in a phenomenally short length of time, I think within several months. So there was – it was very heavily publicised like in terms of the communications departments for the government in the media. It was really a massive undertaking and it utilized a lot of goodwill and resources. 

But also it was possible because a lot of private groups sort of came to the fore and so they were able to put forward and succeed with these private sponsorships. And it was at that time that the government temporarily suspended this requirement that we have sort of as like, of the law that a refugee to be sponsored through these groups of five or small like community organizations they have to have the formal refugee status. So in our submission that is kind of currently in the nascent stage and we are putting it together, so we are going to point out that you have a precedent for it and –

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah exactly, yeah.

Anna Kuranicheva: – it’s like a favourable precedent with good outcomes.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: That’s hopeful.

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah, yeah so if anybody is like interested and they want to find more – like at this stage I can like send you sort of to the website of the CBA to say, hey you know, here is our submission, so it’s not ready it we expect it to be completed within the next of couple of weeks, but if anybody has sort of like more ideas [laughs].

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Of course yeah.

Anna Kuranicheva: So they can reach out to me if anybody sort of like has like a novel vision of what else could be suggested to the government that can be done and that could be realistic and sort of like achievable.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Well if that’s OK with you then we might share your email address at the bottom of our –

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah, mm-hmm.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: – for this podcast. So I understood that from you’ve been saying it’s extremely difficult and you often have to give negatives response to Afghan refugees who ask you questions about what is the next step and what they can do. But can you share with us and example of a successful story since these services have been put in place if you have one?

Anna Kuranicheva: They were still if Afghanistan and so they just heard about this – just generally they heard that Canada is accepting refugees and Canada in late September announced that they would double their intake of Afghanis refugees from 20,000 to 40,000 so this individual wanted to know like so how they can take advantage of it so we had an exchange of emails and I asked them like where they are if they have worked for the Canadian government [unintelligible 00:31:01]. So for me it sort of became again unfortunately a matter of like [unintelligible 00:31:06] OK so you have not worked with the Canadian so you’re not eligible for that, you’re still in Afghanistan and like that’s another barrier for anybody to be resettled as a refugee that you have to be outside of Afghanistan. 

Again it’s sort of the black letter of our law that you cannot be still in Afghanistan and to come to Canada as a refugee. So then OK so you’re still in Afghanistan so you cannot come as a refugee. But then it turned out that the person had family members in Canada, not immediate family so like not spouse and not children. So I connected with the family members and I told them that this potentially allowed. It’s not going to be fast but this is how you can bring this person into Canada through family sponsorship. And so this person in Afghanistan they would be in legal your de facto family member. 

So just in your application and your written request accompanying the application you would have to explain the nature of your relationship and how you are interdependent and how you are supporting each other practically, financially, emotionally. And so then you would ask for this application to be approved on the basis of the de facto relations. So the legal mechanism for that is a specific provision in the Immigration Refugee Act to ask for humanitarian consideration where somebody does not meet the rigid requirements of our statutory law. 

So that was explained to the family in Canada and so they’re in the process now of getting together the application, pulling sort of like records of financial support, like proof of money transactions between these families, proof of communication between each other, like printouts of like regular like Messenger or email communications, yeah. So I’m hoping that applications will come to fruition. Again I had to premise my advice with a lot of “It’s not going to be fast but, you know, like this is a viable route, it is possible in law but you might have to wait.”

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah manage expectations, yeah.

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah but I guess like ultimately, like it still helps for people to have clarity with what is possible and what is not possible and as long as we can provide and we can sort of dispel sort of like myths or misinformation or –

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah definitely or hopes, false hopes.

Anna Kuranicheva: – yeah because for anybody from outside of Canada if they just hear something from somebody or like through social media or on the news that Canada now doubled its intake of Afghani refugees.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah no exactly.

Anna Kuranicheva: Great, so then that’s wonderful. So I guess, you know, anybody who contacts the Canadian government should be able to come [laughs].

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Exactly, it’s like open doors, yeah no it seems so easy.

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah and so then sort of, you know, like we sort of like more, like more sober minded kind of, like we’re really focused on details and so we can come into the picture and explain that this is how it’s going to work, like in your situation you are eligible yet but if the government for example agrees to remove this requirement of the formal refugee status. 

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Yeah, yeah.

Anna Kuranicheva: Yeah and I should say that I keep, like I guess I have all these individuals through my email records, and this I know that other lawyers are doing that too, that as soon as this happens this will be really awesome and amazing news so then we can follow-up with this individual to say that, “OK so now –

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Oh yeah definitely.

Anna Kuranicheva: – so you don’t have to have the formal refugee status so now if you have like let’s say distant relatives, if you have any connection in Canada and if these people can band together for example, like a group of five. Or there is like an ethnic religious organization, like a smaller scale organization, non-profit which normally would be subject to this requirement of the formal refugee status. So now that’s not in place so please connect with them if they want to become sponsors. So now we can provide further information how to kind of start that process. But that initial roadblock which was a huge roadblock and sort of like non-starter from the outside it has been removed now. Yeah so if this happens so then we can follow-up with all those individuals to whom we have had to render sort of like really detailed but negative news, right now we can so one door is open.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Exactly.

Anna Kuranicheva: Like it was shut before but now it has opened. 

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Now it’s open, there is an opportunity somewhere. That would great. I mean I really hope now that it’s going to work. It’s going to work out. So now we’re almost at the end but actually you already shared a bit with us what our members and listeners could do but do you have other actions that you believed they could undertake to improve their current situation?

Anna Kuranicheva: Well you know something that I guess like any sort of like – like any Canadian citizen, any sort of like participant in the Canadian society can do is talk to your MP, reach out to, yeah to the MP and put pressure on them not in the sense that, you know, like pressure that you would there camping out outside of their office but like write a letter and ask them also to facilitate these measures like through the house and through the government, through the political decision‑makers to speed up the processing, to put in more resources into the processing of these – of applications from Afghanis who have already been found eligible. 

Yeah so kind of advocacy on that individual level, like it wouldn’t take very much and, you know, anybody can do it and we all have our MPs like attached to wherever we live. Yeah so like with a massive effort like that it becomes sort of like a massive effort then like I’m hopeful that the government would listen more attentively and those things that we think should be in place already and why they are not; so we are hopeful that they would happen.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher: Thank you very much Anna for giving us more information about this pro bono initiative. We understand this is a challenging situation and that concrete actions must be undertaken by our government to increase support to Afghan civilians who wish to seek refuge in Canada. To our listeners we hope that this podcast gave you some concrete ideas and actions that you can undertake to help support Afghan civilians, this includes reaching out directly to your MPs and asking them to temporarily get rid of the rigid requirement of our law which is currently asking for formal refugee status. If you have other ideas, would like to participate or would like to know more about this initiative you can find all the information in the description of this episode. 

To help us raise awareness in the legal community about improving access to justice share this episode in your professional network. For our previous and future episodes subscribe to The Every Lawyer on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify or your favourite podcast platform. Feel free to leave comments and ratings on these platforms. Check out other CBA podcasts like Conversation with the President and Modern Law on cba.org/podcasts. We also have a podcast in French called Juriste branché. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode.