Statement made on 11 March 2010 by Senator Roméo Dallaire
Hon. Roméo Antonius Dallaire:
Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and is one with a certain amount of urgency. There is a history of the left and right hand not necessarily being in communication.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs says that Canadians are to avoid non-essential travel or avoid all travel to countries and regions and then specifies them. In this case the countries are Rwanda and Burundi. In the same context, I am asking about the case of a woman who has been here for five years, has applied on humanitarian grounds to stay here, who is an assistant nurse, has no criminal record whatsoever and is about to be extradited tomorrow morning from Canada, having received that information on March 8, barely three days ago.
Does the honourable senator consider that to be a fair way of responding to people who have tried to stay in the country, who have put in applications and have been denied? After living here for years, she has been given barely four days to sort everything out and is now being simply thrown out of the country.
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