SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 160 - Feb/14/23

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Feb/14/23 10:08:14 a.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-21

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition on behalf of a number of my constituents, in particular law-abiding firearms owners. There are two aspects to the petition. The petitioners are calling on the government to drop the last-minute amendments to Bill C-21, which I note has occurred, and in particular to focus on criminals and not law-abiding firearms owners. The petitioners emphasize the requirement for the government to use its own data, in particular Public Safety's commissioned report done a few years back by Hill+Knowlton. It points out that over 100,000 Canadians oppose a firearms ban in this country. The petitioners are calling upon the government to stand up for law-abiding firearms owners, sport shooters and farmers with gun legislation, quit targeting them and go after criminals instead.

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Context: House Hansard - 160 - Feb/14/23

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Feb/14/23 12:30:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations with other parties, and I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion, which seeks to correct the record from yesterday's two votes. I move: That notwithstanding any Standing Order That the Journals of the House of Commons for Monday, February 13, 2023, be amended, under Division Nos. 257 and 258, to indicate the following members as paired: The Minister of Foreign Affairs with the member for Shefford The member for Ottawa South with the member for Beauport—Limoilou The member for Parkdale—High Park with the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot The member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

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Context: House Hansard - 160 - Feb/14/23

Mr. Alex Ruff

Feb/14/23 5:22:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.

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Context: House Hansard - 160 - Feb/14/23

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Feb/14/23 6:33:28 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am here tonight to re-address a question that I asked last week in the House on Afghans and Afghan interpreters, those Afghans who helped Canada during our mission there, and what the current Liberal government is doing to help them out. In particular, I was asking on behalf of Abdullah, who has actually been here, about what they were doing to help his family, who were approved eight months or so ago to come to Canada, yet nothing has happened. His brother is now feared missing and presumed dead. My question to the government then was as follows: How many more Afghans such as Abdullah's brother need to die before the government will take urgent action? I want to emphasize why this is so important. I spent over a year of my life in Afghanistan. I have seen, first-hand, the horrific actions of the Taliban. I apologize, in advance, to anybody listening about some of the graphic details I am going to share, such as a father and son beheaded and hung because they helped the local Afghan police during my time there in 2007, and young girls with acid thrown in their face because they dared go to school. We have seen now, since the Taliban has retaken the country, that it is not allowing women and girls to go to university and, just in the last couple of months, any school at all. It has taken away those rights. It is persecuting religious minorities, ethnic minorities, women, 2SLGBTQ+ groups and, in particular, it is targeting women members of parliament from the former Afghanistan government, former Afghan judges and those Afghans who chose to help us help them during our decade-plus in that country. Why is this so important? If we are unwilling, as a nation, to help these Afghans, or those from any country we travel to and where we depend upon them to achieve our missions, whether it be military, whether it be diplomatic or whether it be Canadian NGOs working in those nations, and then we leave them behind when things go sideways, that speaks to who we are as a nation and what we think of those people we are supposedly trying to help. I will predict what I am going to hear from the parliamentary secretary here shortly. She will talk about how they have accepted 27,000 Afghans here into Canada. My question is this: Out of the 27,000, how many of them were already outside of Afghanistan, already in relative safety? I am not saying that we should not be helping them out, those who were able to flee the country, but my primary concern is about those Afghans still in Afghanistan. We are going to hear about the challenges, logistical and security challenges. I will continue to call BS on that. I talk on a daily basis, or a weekly basis, with former colleagues and NGOs that are moving Afghans and Ukrainians out of these respective countries, out of war zones, and they can get it done very, very quickly. I will close with two simple questions. How many more Afghans need to die before the government takes action? When can Parliament expect an update from the government on the 37 recommendations, and the progress that the Liberal government has made them, that came out of the Special Committee on Afghanistan?

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Context: House Hansard - 160 - Feb/14/23

Mr. Alex Ruff

Feb/14/23 6:41:29 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary did not address my questions. My first question was, when can we expect the Afghans still stuck in Afghanistan to get here? There were lots of excuses and lots of reasons why there are challenges. Again, I talked to the people on the ground directly involved with moving these Afghans. It is the bureaucracy. It is the lack of paperwork. We can move people within days if we just get the bureaucracy and paperwork resolved. I will go back to the other question I asked. I am looking for an update on when this House of Commons can expect a progress report on the 37 recommendations made by the Special Committee on Afghanistan to the government.

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