With regard to the International Mobility Program (IMP), since January 1, 2016: (a) what are the top 10 employers, in terms of the number of applications received by the government from the employers, for the IMP, and how many employees have each of the top 10 employers sponsored through the IMP; (b) for each employer in (a), what is the overview of the jobs that each has sponsored, including the (i) type of business, (ii) job titles and work description, (iii) wage ranges; (c) how much money was collected by the government in (i) 2021, (ii) 2022, from compliance fees related to the IMP; (d) how many separate employers were the fees in (c) collected from; (e) what is the number of employers currently ineligible for the IMP as a result of non-compliance; (f) how many investigations were conducted by (i) the Canada Border Services Agency (ii) Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada, related to violations of workers' rights or other suspected infractions of companies which used the IMP; (g) of the investigations in (f), what were the results, including, for each finding of wrongdoing, the (i) company's name, (ii) date the wrongdoing took place, (iii) description of the wrongdoing, (iv) punitive action taken by the government; (h) what was the total number of applications received each year under the IMP; and (i) what was the total number of applicants who arrived in Canada through the IMP each year? With regard to PacifiCan funding programs, broken down by federal electoral district in British Columbia since the agency’s inception: (a) what are the details of all projects that received funding under the Regional Innovation Ecosystems program stream, including the (i) business or organization name, (ii) total amount of funding received; (b) what are the details of all projects that received funding under the Regional Quantum Initiative, including the (i) business or organization name, (ii) total amount of funding received; (c) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Economic Development Initiative, including the (i) business or organization name, (ii) total amount of funding received, (iii) official language minority community that the funding supports; (d) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Community Economic Development and Diversification program, including the (i) business or organization name, (ii) total amount of funding received; (e) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Strategic Partnerships Initiative, including the (i) Indigenous community name, (ii) total amount of funding received; (f) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Strategic Innovation Fund, including the (i) name of the project, (ii) total amount of funding contribution, (iii) total investment leveraged, (iv) number of jobs created and maintained; (g) what is the total amount of funding delivered through past programs, including through the (i) Canadian Experiences Fund, (ii) Steel and Aluminum Initiative, (iii) Western Innovation Initiative, (iv) Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program; and (h) what is the total amount of funding delivered to each federal electoral district in British Columbia in (a) through (g)? With regard to PacifiCan COVID-19 relief and recovery funding, broken down by federal electoral district in British Columbia and fiscal year since the agency’s inception: (a) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Canada Community Revitalization Fund, including the (i) name of the community, (ii) name of the project, (iii) total amount of funding received; (b) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Jobs and Growth Fund, including the (i) name of the business or the organization, (ii) total amount of funding received; (c) what are the details of all projected that received funding through the Tourism Relief Fund, including the (i) name of the business or the organization, (ii) total amount of funding received; (d) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Aerospace Regional Recovery Initiative, including the (i) business or organization name, (ii) total amount of funding received; (e) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Regional Air Transportation Initiative, including the (i) name of the airport, the air carrier, the organization, the business, or the public institution, (ii) total amount of funding received; (f) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Major Festivals and Events Support Initiative, including the (i) name of the eligible festival or event, (ii) total amount of funding received; (g) what are the details of all projects that received funding through the Canadian Seafood Stabilization Fund, including the (i) name of the fish and seafood processor, (ii) total amount of funding received; and (h) what is the total amount of funding delivered to each federal electoral district through the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund? With regard to the government's executive vehicle fleet and travel expenses incurred by chauffeurs or drivers of those vehicles for travel outside of the National Capital Region (NCR): what are the details of all trips where travel expenses were claimed, including the (i) name and title of the minister, deputy minister, or high-ranking government official driven on the trip, (ii) date of departure from the NCR, (iii) date of return to the NCR, (iv) destination, (v) total expenses claimed, (vi) breakdown of the expenses by type (air transportation, accommodation, meals, etc.), (vii) reason for the trip? With regard to the Minister of Transport's trip to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in December 2022: (a) what were the total expenditures related to the trip, broken down by type of expense and who incurred the expense (minister, exempt staff, local embassy, etc.); (b) what was the minister's itinerary on each day of the trip, including who attended each item on the itinerary; and (c) what are the details, including the summary of terms, of any agreements which were signed during the trip? With regard to the government's financial dealing with Medicago: (a) how much funding has the government provided to Medicago since 2018, broken down by date of payment and program or procurement order under which Medicago received the funding; (b) of the money in (a), how much does the government project will be recovered; and (c) what action, if any, has the government taken with Medicago or its parent company, Mitsubishi Chemical Group, to recover the amounts in (a)? With regard to government expenditures on appearance fees, speaking fees, hosting fees, or other similar type of fees, since January 1, 2019, broken down by department, agency, Crown corporation or other government entity: what are the details of all such expenditures, including, for each, the (i) date of the event, (ii) description of the role (keynote speaker, master of ceremony, etc.), (iii) name of the speaker, (iv) location of the event, (v) event description, (vi) size of the audience or the number of attendees, (vii) amount paid? With regard to the Prime Minister's residence at Harrington Lake, including the surrounding property: (a) what are the total expenditures related to all renovations, upgrades, construction, or other projects at the residence or property since November 4, 2015; (b) what are the details of each project, including the (i) cost or estimated cost, (ii) start date, (iii) completion date or the expected completion date, (iv) project description; (c) what was the total annual budget to operate the residence and property since January 1, 2016, broken down by year; and (d) what is the breakdown of (c) by type of expense (utilities, landscaping, etc.)? With regard to requests made by the government to social media companies to take down, edit, ban, or change in any other way social media content, posts, or accounts, since January 1, 2020, broken down by department, agency, or other government entity: what are the details of all such requests, including (i) who made the request, (ii) the date, (iii) the social media platform, (iv) the description of the original content, including the name or the handle associated with post, (v) the description of the change requested, (vi) whether the social media company abided by the government's request? With regard to staffing at the RCMP's Operational Communications Centres (OCC): (a) what was the job vacancy rate (i) nationally, (ii) at each OCC, broken down by location, as of February 7, 2023; (b) how many calls from the public to the OCCs went unanswered or received a busy signal, broken down by month and location since January 1, 2022; and (c) how many hours was each OCC (i) understaffed, (ii) not staffed, broken down by month since January 1, 2022? With regard to both small and mid-sized projects components of the Enabling Accessibility Fund, since its creation: what projects have been funded, broken down by (i) province, (ii) applicant, (iii) amount awarded, (iv) year of the project completion? With regard to furniture and office equipment delivered to the personal residences of ministers and ministerial exempt staff, including in the Office of the Prime Minister, since January 1, 2020: (a) what are the details of all such items delivered to the residences of ministers, including, for each, the (i) minister, (ii) amount paid or the financial value (iii) cost per unit, (iv) description of the items, including the brand and the quantity, (v) vendor, (vi) contract or file number; (b) what are the details of all such items delivered to the residences of ministerial exempt staff, including, for each, the (i) name of the minister the staff member worked for, (ii) amount paid or the financial value, (iii) cost per unit, (iv) description of the item, including the brand and the quantity, (v) vendor, (vi) contract or file number; and (c) are any of the items in (a) or (b) expected to be returned to a government location at any point in the future, and, if so, what are the details of any such plans? With regard to Medicago, Philip Morris International and the government's investments in Medicago: (a) what are the details of all memorandums, correspondence or briefing materials sent to or received by any minister, exempt staff, or government official in any department or agency in the Health portfolio or the Innovation, Science and Economic Development portfolio, since January 1, 2020, about Medicago or Philip Morris International, including, for each, the (i) type of document, (ii) date, (iii) sender, (iv) recipient, (v) title, (vi) subject matter, (vii) summary of contents, (viii) file number; (b) on what date was the government made aware that Philip Morris' minority ownership stake in Medicago's parent company would make its products ineligible to receive authorization from the World Health Organization; and (c) did the government do anything to hedge its investments following the realization in (b)? With regard to the announcement by the government on August 1, 2019, that it would be providing $250 million in repairs and upgrades to Reserve armouries and training facilities across Canada: (a) how much of that money has been distributed to date, broken down by the location of each armoury or training facility that has received funding; and (b) at each location in (a), what specific projects or repairs are being done with the funding and what is the expected completion date of each project?

Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

moved that Bill C-41, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, it is truly an honour to begin debate today on Bill C-41. This legislation aims to address important aspects of the deepening crisis in Afghanistan and responds to Canadian humanitarian aid agencies and their pleas to be able to deliver relief to a country on the brink. This work stems from the cross-party collaborative efforts from the Special Committee on Afghanistan and the important recommendations put forward by members of that committee. I am proud to have been a member of this committee, but this work is also thanks to the non-governmental organizations and humanitarian aid agencies that advocated and testified at committee for a pathway forward to deliver aid to Afghanistan. The testimony we heard was haunting. The Afghan people have persisted through four decades of war, and since the forceful capture of the country by the Taliban, the world has witnessed the erosion of fundamental rights and the steady deterioration of social and economic systems. This has created the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Drawing on testimony from the committee, I want to remind the House that Afghanistan was a country that was reliant on foreign aid before the takeover by the Taliban. The committee’s report states the following: The World Bank had assessed that Afghanistan’s economy was “shaped by fragility and aid dependence.” Grants were financing some 75% of total public expenditure and were responsible for around 45% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product in 2020. With the abrupt return to power of the Taliban, Afghanistan—whose currency reserves held abroad were frozen—experienced a significant fiscal contraction at the same time as it essentially became cut-off from the international banking and payments systems. That occurred because the Taliban have long been subject to sanctions in relation to terrorism. The overall result for the country has been “near economic and institutional collapse, including an inability to provide most basic services and pay civil servant salaries.” The net effect for the Afghan people is that prices have increased, livelihoods have disappeared, and household resources have been exhausted... To encapsulate the enormity of this situation, John Aylieff, Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific at the WFP, said: “Today, millions of people in Afghanistan—young children, families and communities—stand at the precipice of inhumane hunger and destitution.” Of the 23 million people who required food assistance, nearly 9 million were “one step away from famine,” while some 1 million children were “at risk of perishing this year from acute malnutrition.” The population of Afghanistan is 40 million people, and 23 million people require food assistance. What I have described is but a small sample of the testimony we heard. It was clear that Canadian aid agencies were ready and willing to help, but they were unable to do so. According to Michael Messenger, CEO of World Vision Canada, that organization had “two containers full of packets of ready-to-use therapeutic food…to treat children facing the severest forms of malnutrition…[that] can literally bring children back from the brink of death by starvation.” The committee report goes on to say, “The organization could not ship them to Afghanistan, despite the pleas from their team on the ground. Each container can help more than 900 children.” I am proud of the report from the Special Committee on Afghanistan and am pleased this legislation is in line with recommendations 10 and 11, which called upon the government to ensure that registered Canadian organizations have the clarity and assurances needed to deliver humanitarian assistance to meet the basic needs of the people of Afghanistan without fear of prosecution for violating Canada’s anti-terrorism laws. Canada has a long and rich history of fighting for human rights and delivering life-saving assistance abroad. Over the last 20 years, many Afghans experienced improved access to health services and education and were able to participate in efforts to build their democracy. This occurred in no small part thanks to the efforts of Canadian organizations providing aid in support of a generation of leaders, many of whom were women, who were building a better country for all Afghans. The purpose of this bill is to address the fact that Canada’s current legal framework has limited the ability of Canadian aid organizations to provide assistance to the people of Afghanistan due to potential Criminal Code liability. Although the Taliban has taken over as the de facto national authority of Afghanistan, it remains a listed terrorist group under Canada’s Criminal Code. The Taliban maintains close links with several terrorist groups, and the combination of a weak state and a collapsing economy gives terrorist groups a fertile ground within which to operate, but we must put in place needed reform to address the needs of the Afghan people and to facilitate the assistance they so desperately need. We will find a balanced course of action that will also seek to preserve the integrity of Canada’s counter-terrorism financing measures. The proposed bill maintains strong counter-terrorist financing measures while presenting an authorization regime to provide protection from criminal liability for the delivery of humanitarian aid and other activities by Canadian organizations. Terrorist financing remains a criminal offence. Authorizations would only shield applicants from criminal liability for providing an unavoidable benefit to a terrorist group associated with activities that serve a specified purpose, subject to strict terms and conditions. An authorization would not shield efforts to deliberately leverage the authorization to provide a benefit to a terrorist group beyond what is incidental and covered by the authorization terms and conditions. Such activities would remain criminal. We recognize that terrorism is a global threat that requires a concerted international response. Canada’s terrorist financing regime is contained in the Criminal Code and, because of this, aid agencies were restricted in delivering aid as it could be interpreted as providing indirect financial support to the Taliban, which is a criminal offence. This authorization tool would facilitate the delivery of certain activities, like humanitarian assistance, human rights programming and immigration services, in geographic areas controlled by terrorist groups. This means that Canadians holding an authorization and providing these services would no longer be at risk of committing a terrorist financing offence, and foreign citizens, like the people of Afghanistan, would be able to receive the assistance they need in their country or by resettling to Canada. I have already heard anecdotally that some aid organizations are ramping up their operations in anticipation of the passage of this legislation so they can scale up their work in supporting the people of Afghanistan. Further, the proposed authorization regime is not restricted to Afghanistan, in order to enable the Government of Canada to respond to similar situations elsewhere in the world, now and in the future. Under this regime, the Minister of Public Safety would consider applications that have been referred by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and/or the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, who would first need to be satisfied that certain conditions were met. This includes, among other things, that the proposed activity aligns with a permitted purpose and responds to a real and important need. Once the application has been referred, the Minister of Public Safety would conduct a security review that must assess the impact of granting the authorization on terrorist financing. Factors to be considered include, among others, whether the applicants or those involved in activity implementation have links to terrorist groups or were investigated, charged or convicted of terrorism offences. Those assessments would be led by Public Safety and undertaken by the national security agencies, such as CSIS, the RCMP and CSE, where required. The issuance of an authorization would ultimately take into account an assessment of benefit, need and capability of the applicant against the assessment of risk of terrorist financing. Any eligible person or organization in Canada, or Canadian organization outside of Canada, could apply for an authorization. This could include Government of Canada officials, as well as persons associated with or acting on behalf of a registered or incorporated Canadian organization. The updated Criminal Code provisions would also set out permissible classes of activities that would achieve certain purposes. In the current situation in Afghanistan, the delivery of aid and other forms of international assistance inevitably benefits the Taliban through taxation and other fees. This regime would allow Canadian organizations, including Government of Canada departments, to work within the defined scope of an authorization to achieve their goals without risk of running afoul of the law. Simply put, the changes contemplated in Bill C-41 would allow our aid agencies to go back to what they do best: saving lives. I know this is an issue that has touched the hearts of all who served on the Special Committee on Afghanistan. We were able to set aside partisan differences and work together to present our report. The bill responds to that report. I was heartened to see this place provide unanimous consent to a motion last week that will ensure that the bill is fast-tracked through the parliamentary process. I began my speech by outlining the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, but it is not only food insecurity that threatens the lives of millions of Afghans. Health care is in crisis. Women and girls are facing human rights violations that are unthinkable. Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of those living with a disability in the world, after decades of war and land mines. Families have sold their daughters just to survive. To be honest, the conditions in Afghanistan are beyond comprehension for all of us sitting here in Canada. Sadly, they are a reality for millions of Afghans living under the Taliban regime. Groups like Islamic Relief, World Vision, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, Red Cross, CARE Canada and so many others are ready to provide aid to some of the world’s most vulnerable, but they need us to act. In 2019, The Asia Foundation released a model disability survey of Afghanistan, which found that nearly 80% of adults in Afghanistan have a disability. As a result, many of the households in Afghanistan have become women-led. With the current regime in place, women have been forced out of the economy and out of schools, leaving many households in abject poverty. Those living with disabilities also face heightened violence and insecurity within conflict. Because of this, so many who have a disability in Afghanistan face more difficulties attempting to flee conflict, resulting in a higher reliance on humanitarian aid. Bill C-41 would be able to reach this population, which has not had the same opportunity to seek refuge in other countries, and would allow for humanitarian aid to flow to Afghanistan to address the specific needs those with disabilities face. The human rights abuses against women and girls, and the Hazaras, are particularly egregious. Women and girls have been denied their most basic rights, including their right to education and employment, at every turn. Finding different means to control women, the Taliban has imposed strict dress codes, forcing them to wear a burka, a full body covering that obscures their face and body. Women’s freedom of movement has also been severely restricted, with women being allowed to leave their homes only in the company of a male relative. Of course, those who do not comply are met with harassment, abuse and state-sanctioned violence. The restrictions imposed on women’s education are devastating. In March 2018, on the floor of the Library of Parliament, in the old Centre Block, at the heart of our democracy, I, along with the Minister of Science, the Minister for Women and Gender Equality, and the Prime Minister, met with the Afghan Dreamers. They were an all-women high school robotics team who, in partnership with FIRST Robotics Canada, had flown from Afghanistan to Canada to compete against high-school teams across the province. They brought their robot from Kabul to Canada.

It is hard to remember these young women and think about their lives today under the Taliban. They showed me what the future of Afghanistan was going to look like, and I remain in hope that this future comes to fruition. When I was speaking with these young women, they told me that when they left Canada to go back home they wanted to open a school dedicated to teaching other women and girls about science, technology, engineering and math. These young women were and continue to be Afghanistan's greatest resource. Since returning to power, the Taliban has targeted schools like the one envisioned by The Afghan Dreamers, often destroying school buildings and threatening those who teach and attend them. At times, women have been prohibited from attending schools and universities. Women who are pursuing higher education have been forced to abandon their studies. Women are being used as a tool to advance the Taliban's power in the region. Speaking at the UN Commission on the Status of Women on March 24, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan advocacy manager Sarah Keeler said: But while girls the world over are out of education, the situation for girls and women in Afghanistan is unparalleled in its intensity and impact. Under repressive Taliban rule, Afghanistan is now the only country on the planet with the terrible distinction of denying women and girls their right to learn as a policy. Indeed, the Taliban's restrictions amount to system-wide gender persecution, in education and elsewhere. For girls like Maryam, there are not just the barriers of poverty or lack of infrastructure, already overwhelming enough—there is also ideological malice that has intentionally robbed girls of their rights and hope for the future. “What crime have I committed?”, asks Maryam. She writes to us of feeling hopeless, suicidal and alone. All Afghan women and girls, but perhaps most of all the generation for whom two decades of democratic progress and investment in education provided the catalyst for real achievement and aspiration, are experiencing a profound mental health crisis. The Hazara minority is no different. Through witnesses who appeared before committee, we heard about the devastation and persecution faced by the Hazara community. Hazaras are a predominantly Shia Muslim ethnic group that has faced systemic discrimination from the Taliban. From being subjected to attacks to forced displacement and other human rights abuses, the Hazara minority remains a vulnerable group in Afghanistan that is in dire need of the support this bill would allow. Previously, Canada introduced special measures to support Afghans through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. We have welcomed over 29,000 Afghan refugees since August 2021. These special measures allow the expedited processing of applications from Afghan nationals seeking to immigrate to Canada. A dedicated channel was introduced for applications coming in from a number of measures Canada presented. The special immigration measures program aims to resettle 18,000 people. IRCC also introduced a temporary public policy that creates a pathway to permanent residence for extended family members of former Afghan interpreters who immigrated to Canada under the 2009 and 2012 public policies. More recently, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada introduced a temporary policy for extended family members of former language and cultural advisers. The work that our government has done has been important and life-changing. While thousands of Afghan nationals have been able to seek refuge in Canada, there are millions more who need our support, and this bill would allow exactly that. We as parliamentarians have an obligation to all Afghans to pass this legislation quickly and judiciously. Aid to Afghanistan remains absolutely vital. With this legislative change, Canada is responding to the growing crisis in Afghanistan. This would also help our government work with like-minded countries and international partners to advance our priorities. Canada has a hard-earned international reputation as both a fierce protector and a steadfast source of humanitarian assistance. I want to give a special thanks to those who worked on this issue. It is rare in this place that we work together with civil society to make such monumental change, but with this legislation, we will truly save the lives of some of the most vulnerable in the world.

Madam Speaker, I do not doubt the member's sincere personal feelings, but I have to say that the government has failed the people of Afghanistan for far too long. If we reflect on the timelines, the Taliban took Kabul in August 2021. The Afghanistan standing committee report that the member referred to came out in June 2022. It has been nine months since then, and now we are debating this legislation at the end of March 2023. The foreign affairs committee unanimously passed a motion I put forward in the fall of last year reiterating the call from the Afghanistan committee, and passed a similar motion this spring. This legislation, once passed, does not grant the exemptions yet. We will still have to wait for exemptions to be granted by the government through regulation. We have already been through two winters in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and the very dire situations the member spoke about have persisted throughout that time. However, the government has been very late in responding to unanimous calls, and certainly calls from the opposition, for action. Why has it taken the government so long?

Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows full well that Canada's terrorist financing regime is contained in the Criminal Code. Work needed to be done to ensure that we were amending the Criminal Code in a way that would give aid organizations the ability to deliver aid in Afghanistan. We also worked with those aid organizations. We took up the recommendations and testimony we heard at the special committee, because we wanted to ensure that we were getting right what we were doing. I can assure the hon. member that with the regime in place and the authorization regime, we will be looking at things in a very timely manner, because we know the impact that it will have on the ground in Afghanistan.

Madam Speaker, I applaud the hon. member's advocacy and work on behalf of women and girls not just here in Canada but around the world. I know that groups like Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan are continuing to find ways to provide assistance to women and girls in Afghanistan, often doing it at great risk to their own lives. I worry that Canadians have forgotten about Afghanistan, but through advocacy like ours and the hon. member's, we continue to shine a light on the abhorrent conditions that women and girls are facing in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. I think we all need to continue to speak up loudly on behalf of the women and girls in Afghanistan.

Madam Speaker, I share in the hon. member's horror and grief at what is happening in Afghanistan, with the discrimination and persecution that women in Afghanistan are facing right now. It is part of the reason my NDP colleagues and I have been so frustrated that it has taken 18 months to get here. We have needed this legislation. However, now that it is here, we are hearing concerns from humanitarian organizations that it may contravene international law and Canada's international obligations. In particular, Doctors Without Borders Canada has expressed these concerns. Why did the government not do a blanket exemption and carve-out, like many organizations have been requesting? There are no other countries doing the kind of bureaucratic process the government has chosen with a registry. I am curious if the member could explain how this does nor does not contravene our international obligations, and why the government did not listen to the organizations on the ground and do a blanket carve-out.

Madam Speaker, I had not heard those concerns, so I thank the hon. member for bringing them forward. I will say that Canada was unique among other countries in the way that our terrorist financing regime was designed. It was included in the Criminal Code, so it made it more difficult to make exemptions compared to what other countries have done. I know other countries around the world have granted a blanket exemption, but their terrorist financing provisions were not included in a criminal code the way ours are. I look forward to the hon. member passing on the concerns that she has heard to me, and I look forward to working with her to ensure that we put forward something that is able to deliver aid to Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

Madam Speaker, I very much welcome this legislation coming forward, although I share some of the concerns of the hon. member for Victoria. Many of our allies and other donor countries did not have the problems we have had as a country with getting aid workers into Afghanistan without tripping up into the rules against terrorism. I welcome this legislation. We need to get it through quickly. I was totally moved by my colleague's speech and her emotion about this issue, but our colleagues in Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. did not have the problems that were created for us by the very strict and overly narrow definitions of terrorism that tripped up our aid efforts. Does she have any thoughts on what we can learn from this experience going forward?

Madam Speaker, I think there are lessons to be learned from how the original legislation was drafted. As the hon. member knows, the original legislation was drafted by a previous government. We have been trying to find a way to put in place something that respects what is in the Criminal Code but still allows agencies to deliver aid. I wish we could have done this many months ago. I was haunted by the testimony we heard at committee. I think of the young women who came to Canada whose lives have been so disrupted by what has happened in their country, a country that at one time not too long ago had so much hope. We were dealing with a system that was already in place, and I think there are always lessons to be learned as we move forward.

Madam Speaker, it is heartbreaking to hear what is happening. I was recently at an Nowruz event with thousands of Afghan women, and the stories we heard about what is happening were beyond belief. One thing I wanted to ask about was the human rights programming aspect. The parliamentary secretary mentioned that in addition to humanitarian aid, we will now be able to help with human rights programming. Could you specifically address how we might be able to help young women and girls who are not able to get educated at this point through these programs?

I am not able to answer that, but I will give it to the hon. member to answer. I would ask the hon. member to address all questions and comments through the Chair, not directly to the member. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

Madam Speaker, you are welcome to answer if you wish. As I mentioned previously, groups like Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, which have been doing such incredible work under a previous Taliban regime, are going to be able to do what they do best on the ground. There are other organizations. I singled them out specifically, but other organizations have teams on the ground in Afghanistan that stand ready to deliver education, aid and whatever is needed for the people of Afghanistan.

Madam Speaker, on September 11, 2001, a terrorist organization that was using Afghanistan as its base of operations attacked New York and Washington. In response to this attack, Canada joined an American-like coalition that worked to overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban government and supported the transformation of Afghanistan into a free democracy. Canada also joined other countries in establishing tough new domestic anti-terrorism legislation that aided in preventing any kind of presence of or interaction with designated terrorist organizations. The decision to overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban government was seen as just and a form of retaliation for the lives lost on September 11, but it was also framed as a war for the liberation of the Afghan people. It was widely explained not as a war against Afghanistan but as a war for Afghanistan, in particular for the freedom of the Afghan people. The spirit of that period was one of profound optimism about the universality of the human aspiration for freedom and democracy and about the possibility of external intervention quickly bringing about that democracy. This optimism was best expressed by then British prime minister Tony Blair, who said: ...ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police. The implication in the minds of many seemed to be that we could use superior firepower to chase out the bad guys, introduce democracy and then quickly move on with our lives. As Canada joined military efforts to support the transformation of Afghanistan into a free democracy, Afghanistan also became a major focus of Canadian development systems. In this whole enterprise we were motivated by the highest aspirations: to sacrifice blood and treasure to allow women and men on the other side of the world to seize their birthright of freedom. However, on August 15, 2021, almost exactly 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, as the last allied soldiers were pulling out of Afghanistan, it was again overrun by Taliban forces. As of this moment in time at least, our great optimistic efforts to transform Afghanistan ended in failure. On the same day that Kabul fell, rather than being at his desk working on the desperately needed response to these unfolding events, our Prime Minister was visiting the Governor General to call a domestic election, an election that we did not need, that featured more polarization and demonization of Canadians than any in recent memory and that returned a virtually unchanged Parliament. We would have been so much better off if the Prime Minister had been putting his responsibilities ahead of his perceived political interests. Leading up to the fall of Afghanistan, the Conservatives had been calling on the government to use special immigration measures to assist the most vulnerable Afghans, those who assisted Canada during the previous 20 years, as well as ethnic and religious minorities, such as Hazaras, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians. In fact, the very first statement I ever made in this House back in 2015 was to call for special immigration measures for Afghan minorities. The government's response to these calls has ranged from slow to non-existent, and lives have been lost as a result. Outside of the failures of our government, it is worth taking stock of what happened in general between September 11, 2001, and August 15, 2021. What caused the optimism for the expansion of freedom and democracy that drove nation building in Afghanistan post-9/11 to fade into the fatalistic acceptance of the apparent global democratic decline that led the United States and other countries to leave Afghanistan and effectively hand it back to the Taliban?

The hon. member for Repentigny on a point of order.

Madam Speaker, the interpreter is saying that the member is speaking so fast that she is having difficulty interpreting. She is doing her best. Could we ask the member to slow down a bit, please?

Of course we need the interpretation to work so that everyone can understand what is being said. The interpreter should have the member's notes. If not, we will be sure to provide them to her. The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan can continue his speech.