44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 27, 2023 11:00AM
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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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Madam Speaker, we are seeing women's rights around the world under threat. I highlighted in my own speech the threat to women and girls, their rights in Afghanistan and how egregious they are. However, I find it a bit rich when the hon. member stands up on providing aid to countries that are in such dire need when he has been such a vocal opponent of women's reproductive rights, in particular filibustering a study at the foreign affairs committee on providing resources for organizations that provide sexual and reproductive health in countries around the world.
I do not really have a question. I just wanted to make a comment on the need to support women and girls in Canada and around the world.
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Madam Speaker, I want to comment on how disheartening it is to hear members of the Conservative Party not acknowledging the importance of women's reproductive rights when we are talking about humanitarian aid. It is very disheartening.
However, I will move on. Clearly, the reproductive rights of men are not at stake here, so I guess it is not important. I apologize, it is an important issue.
Today we are talking about how we need to ensure that the people of Afghanistan are receiving life-saving humanitarian aid. I want to hear from the member whether he feels that, in the current bill we are discussing, the processes would create challenges for smaller aid agencies that do not have the same level of resources as larger ones.
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Madam Speaker, I was at the meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development where we debated women's sexual and reproductive health and where we heard from women. NGOs came to ask for more help for Afghan women who have been raped. These are terrible situations. Representatives from the Afghan community came to my constituency office in Granby to complain about how slow the government was moving.
Beyond that, this is an unfortunate example of what happens when we allow religious values to come before science and dominate a government. This is an example of the rise of fundamentalism, which is why women's rights are being set back and violated. Women need this bill now. The Bloc Québécois will collaborate to speed up the process. As far as foreign aid is concerned, we heard from NGOs that were worried about funding. The federal government claims to have a feminist foreign policy. It should provide the funding to back up that claim.
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Madam Speaker, I have a couple of things to say.
First of all, my colleague referred to Ukrainian refugees, but I am not sure if he perhaps failed to understand that the government does not list them as refugees, so they are not given the protection that refugees should have in our community.
The other thing he talked about is Afghan refugees. I have to tell him that I was in my office during the last constituency week talking to interpreters who have had their families and co-workers left behind by this government. I have talked to interpreters who supported our military, who supported our country, who have been left behind.
Yes, absolutely, I will say that we have been able to bring many people here from Afghanistan and from Ukraine, but I will not say that we have done a good job of it, that we have not left behind people to whom we had deep obligations. That is not anything to do with Bill C-41, which is an entirely different thing.
If we are not going to bring people out of their country so they can survive a genocidal terrorist regime in their own country, I do have to tell the member that humanitarian aid is the support we can give them.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Edmonton Strathcona for her excellent speech. She is such a champion for human rights and international aid, and such an expert in it. It grieves me to think of how this could have been improved had the government listened to her all along.
I want to give her another opportunity to expand on the possible risks this legislation puts organizations and individuals at, because it is a registry and not a blanket carve-out for all organizations, and how that can affect the safety of people on the ground in Afghanistan.
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Madam Speaker, a fundamental part of humanitarian law is that humanitarian assistance is protected and not a target. This is part of international humanitarian law for a very important reason: Even in the worst human situations, we need to ensure that humanitarian aid can be delivered. Even with the worst state actors, we need to make sure humanitarian aid can be delivered.
When this legislation goes into place, the way it could weaponize humanitarian aid is so dangerous to the organizations that are already putting themselves in danger and the volunteers who are already putting themselves at risk.
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Madam Speaker, to answer the member's question, the government has made it a priority, and that is the reason we have seen the co-operation and the push not only for humanitarian aid but also for ways in which we can assist those Afghan refugees once they can get out of Afghanistan to come to Canada. Canada has led the way on that particular issue.
Recognizing there are many different agencies and individuals in Canada today who are very supportive of us continuing to provide that aid, and that this legislation we are debating today is in fact going to assist in Canada having an ongoing and more stable—
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Madam Speaker, I guess the question was about the assurance that the agencies will continue to do the job. In cases like this, in crises like this, we need to be thinking ahead of time. That is what I think the government failed to do. We are talking about 18 months, 18 months where women, children and elders suffered a lot and the humanitarian aid did not get there to help them out and cope with these big challenges that they were going through.
The point is about the timing. I hope the government realizes that that was a mistake on its side.
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Mr. Speaker, at this point we are looking at legislation that we know is urgently needed but quite flawed. It need not have been so complicated to create a carve-out for charitable organizations.
Could the hon. member for Edmonton Manning comment on what they did in Australia, what they did in the U.K. and what our other allies in democratic efforts and in supporting the rights of women around the world did to ensure that their aid organizations could get in to assist?
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Mr. Speaker, I believe we could use some executive orders to speed this up and provide the necessary steps to get aid to the people who need it the most.
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Madam Speaker, we have all become very aware of the conflict situation in Haiti, and we know that many NGOs and humanitarian aid organizations are doing very good work there. Would the legislation also provide organizations working in Haiti, for example, with protection as well?
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Madam Speaker, to my understanding, Haiti, right now, is not listed as a terrorist organization, so right now we can raise funds.
I know that one of the things talked about when President Biden was here with the Prime Minister was Canada's participating in a special mission to Haiti to bring and restore peace and security to the region. We need to do that for our aid workers who are there. Haiti is like Afghanistan, the second-poorest country in the world. If anyone needs help, it is the people of Haiti, and if anyone needs to go, it is the gangs that are right now running the government.
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