ISLAMABAD: Pakistan High Commissioner to Canada Raza Bashir Tarar Saturday said that Canada’s suspension of flights from Pakistan by clubbing it to its neighbouring country currently witnessing huge surge of coronavirus cases, was disproportionate.

He hoped that flights between the two countries would resume after 30-day period to facilitate families separated by the ban. He was appearing in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) popular political show ‘Power and Politics’, a press release said.

To a question as to whether Pakistan would like to have any assistance from Canada or other countries as India had done to fight COVID-19 recently, the high commissioner said Pakistan would welcome any assistance and noted that Canada had already contributed CAD 850,000 to the World Health Organization (WHO) to fight COVID-19 on Pakistan’s request and Pakistan valued its relationship with Canada.

Tarar said it was Canada’s sovereign right to take any measures it deemed fit to fight the spread of COVID-19, but the figures spoke for themselves as in Pakistan as the coronavirus cases were already declining due to immediate measures adopted by the government. The high commissioner pointed out that the non-Canadians were already not allowed to enter Canada even before the announcement of the ban.

The people who had been inconvenienced were essentially the Canadians of Pakistani extraction facing considerable hardships due to the ban, he added. Tarar also mentioned that passengers arriving in Canada were required to go for COVID-19 tests at the airports and required to undergo mandatory quarantine.