44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 12, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I move that the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, presented to the House on Monday, June 5, 2023, be concurred in.
It is a pleasure for me to rise to be able to speak to this important committee report, which deals with the House's ongoing condemnation of the Taliban for its horrific violence against the Afghan people. While I am moving this concurrence motion, I want to say that I am going to be sharing my time with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. I am very much looking forward to his comments, as he is someone who has served this country in uniform.
So many Canadians served in uniform in Afghanistan: 158 Canadians gave their lives, and more than 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces served. The blood, treasure and time Canada invested in Afghanistan has established a special bond and commitment that we have with that country. It is felt particularly deeply by those who served, but it is felt in some sense by all of us who have seen the sacrifices and known people who have participated in those sacrifices.
This House has rightly just passed Bill C-41, a bill that will enable development assistance to get into Afghanistan and create an authorization regime whereby that can happen. I think passing that bill was the right decision to create that framework whereby this development assistance can be delivered. However, at the same time, we should be clear in our denunciation of any normalization of the Taliban or any recognition of legitimacy of its control over Afghanistan, and we should be firm and clear in our commitment to the fact that the Afghan people deserve freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. This is the birthright of all people. Canada has been particularly engaged with, and it has sacrificed for, the people of Afghanistan. We need to hold on to, and be steadfast in committing to, the principle that Afghans, in particular, deserve the protection of these fundamental rights. Therefore, we reject any kind of normalization or recognition of the Taliban, and we believe that it is important to engage with pro-democracy opposition groups, with the goal of restoring freedom, democracy and fundamental human rights to the people of Afghanistan.
The motion that Conservatives brought to the committee and that was unanimously adopted by the committee says:
That the committee report to the House that it firmly denounces the Taliban and rejects any recognition or legitimization of their control over Afghan territory. In particular, the committee denounces the Taliban system of gender discrimination, systemic violence targeting minority communities, reprisals against former members of the Afghan National Security and Defence Forces, attacks on freedom of the press, and other violations of fundamental human rights. The committee believes that the Taliban must remain a listed terrorist organization.
Parenthetically, I want to mention to the House that there are a number of cases of terrorist listings that the government has been behind on. We are at about the five-year anniversary of the House adopting my motion calling on the government to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization. At the time, the government actually voted for that motion. That was five years ago; the government said it was being studied and considered, but it still has not listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization, in spite of the escalation in horrific violence from the Iranian regime.
Conservatives have also called for the listing of the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization. There was a unanimous consent motion in the House a number of months ago. It has not been five years, as it has been with the IRGC, but it has still been a number of months. The Wagner Group is involved in the genocidal invasion of Ukraine by the Putin regime. It is also active in parts of Africa. It has been active in Syria, using horrifically violent tactics with complete disregard for civilian life and acting as an agent of the Putin regime's foreign policy.
We have called for the listing of the IRGC and the Wagner Group, and the House has called for the listing of the IRGC and the Wagner Group. These are two terrorist groups that have not been listed as terrorist entities under the Criminal Code. The Taliban is listed, and, through this motion, we are highlighting the importance of the Taliban remaining listed.
When we list an organization under the Criminal Code, it is not merely symbolic; of course, it is very significant. It is a way of most clearly denouncing these groups and shutting down any possibility for them to operate in Canada. It means that, when an organization is a terrorist group, it cannot recruit, be present or fundraise here. In the absence of a terrorist listing, groups have more room to manoeuvre. This is why we think it is important to shut down these groups in Canada.
I will return now to talk specifically about the Taliban and Afghanistan. After the September 11 attacks in the United States, there was a global coalition that came together recognizing that Afghanistan had become a haven from which terrorist attacks could be organized, as well as that the Afghan people were victims of horrific, ongoing violence.
We could detail those violations of human rights then and now. We have seen the horrific targeting of ethnic and religious minorities, such as Christians and the Shia Muslim community. The Hazara community has faced multiple ongoing genocides, as have the Sikh and Hindu communities in Afghanistan, which I and other members have advocated for. There has also been targeting of other minorities and all Afghans, particularly in terms of the situation of women in Afghanistan. I think it is quite correct to say that there is a system of “gender apartheid” in place in Afghanistan, and that is part of the system of human rights violations that we are seeing.
The motion highlights the system of gender apartheid, as well as the violence against minorities, attacks on freedom of the press, the targeting of those who have been involved in Afghan national security and defence forces and those who were involved in supporting Canada. They are all victims of Taliban violence. Many of these groups were victims of Taliban violence during the initial period of Taliban control of Afghanistan, and it is with this in mind, as well as the threats to our own security, that Canada stepped up and joined our allies in fighting to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and support the Afghan people in realizing their desire for freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law. Many Canadians participated heroically in that effort.
I believe that the pullout from Afghanistan was a big mistake. It would have been better for western troops to be able to continue to play a supportive role as Afghans were heroically fighting the Taliban. The pullout was poorly managed and poorly executed, and it was really done in a way that gave the Taliban the greatest opportunity to be able to take over the country. The sad reality is that the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan. However, I think it is crucial for the House, for us here and for the Canadian people to remain engaged with events in Afghanistan. We must honour the sacrifices that have been made and the ongoing desire of the Afghan people to have change in their country.
There are many Afghan civil society groups, opposition groups, pro-democracy groups and diaspora groups in Canada that are working to envision and to plan for a brighter future for Afghanistan. The foreign affairs committee recently heard testimony from a representative of the National Resistance Front, who said that the Taliban rule in Afghanistan is clearly not working. It is causing all sorts of problems, including a humanitarian crisis, and, in his view, it is realistic to hope for a collapse of the Taliban administration that would open the door, again, for a new alternative Afghan government that aligns more with the hopes and values of the people of that country, which is what we would hope for here in Canada.
We should be continuing to engage, to support the opposition and to tighten sanctions against the Taliban oppressors of the Afghan people. It is not a lost cause; far from it. There are many reasons to hope that a brighter future is ahead, but Afghanistan's friends around the world must continue to be engaged in that hope. That means firmly holding the line against the Taliban, preserving its terrorist listing and looking for opportunity, if anything, to tighten the sanctions that apply to the Taliban. That is our position, and I hope this is a position that is shared by the House.
Finally, on immigration measures, Canada had and continues to have an obligation to support those who stood with Canada and fought with Canada, as well as the most vulnerable minority communities, and to support their ability to make application to come to Canada. Sadly, the government was far behind on making that happen. We had been calling for measures in the lead-up to the fall of Kabul. In fact, on the day Kabul fell, the Prime Minister should have been at his desk; instead, he was at the Governor General's, calling an election.
It is a shame that the government was not more focused on responding to events in Afghanistan. Instead, it was making calculations about its own political future. Conservatives believe that this whole House should stand with the people of Afghanistan and seek that brighter democratic future.
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Madam Speaker, I note that Bill C-41 passed in this place this afternoon. It is a very important piece of legislation ensuring that aid goes from Canadian sources and agencies to Afghanistan. I want to acknowledge the work of the member opposite on this file.
I also want to question something. Today, when we have the passage of Bill C-41, when I think we are all quite united in condemning the Taliban and all that it stands for, why are we taking valuable House resources away from Bill C-40, an act to amend the Criminal Code with respect to the miscarriage of justice? It is an act that has been sought by many victims, who have come forward to ask the justice system to respond to their needs.
Why are we spending so much time on something that we all agree on?
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- Jun/12/23 5:47:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as the critic for status of women, I am obviously looking at this file from that perspective. In that capacity, I have been often approached about this report and the situation in Afghanistan.
The situation of women in Afghanistan remains very uncertain and extremely worrisome. I think we need to be extremely vigilant and monitor the situation on the ground very closely. There is humanitarian aid and ministerial authorization. In short, the international community is asking us to allow rights organizations to continue operating on the ground in Afghanistan so that they can monitor the situation of women closely and help advance their rights. Right now, it seems as though Afghanistan is back in the middle ages, where women are seen as being worth less than nothing. Their rights are seriously threatened. Personally, I have met people in my riding who are very worried about that.
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- Jun/12/23 5:48:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I share the member's concerns about the situation of women in Afghanistan. I have appreciated having the opportunity to meet with Afghan women's organizations here in Canada and hear them share first-hand some of the things they are hearing. I salute the organizations in Canada that are working hard on behalf of women who are victims of gender apartheid.
We should be doing all we can to support democracy, women's rights and other groups working for the advancement of freedom. I think we also need to explore ways that we might be able to make educational resources available to women who still want to be able to access those resources in spite of the repression that exists. We may also explore other ways people can access those materials, while avoiding detection, in Afghanistan.
There is a lot of work that we need to do to support women in this situation. I want to encourage the House to remain seized with these events, to honour the commitments made in the past to Afghanistan and continue to be seized with these events going forward.
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- Jun/12/23 5:49:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for providing me the opportunity today to do something that I have no problem doing, and that is bashing the Taliban. I have zero time for the Taliban regime. For those who may not be aware and might be listening today, I had the privilege to serve this country in uniform and spent 14 months of my life in Afghanistan.
I will offer what I have offered before. The Afghan people are no different from any other people around this world. They are no different from Canadians. They are people who just want to live in peace and have a chance to provide their families, relatives and friends with a better life. Unfortunately, under the Taliban, people, especially women and girls, do not have the same opportunity as those of us in the west and in Canada, in particular.
I want to share a bit history of Canada's involvement, my personal experiences and where we got things right and where we got things wrong. I honestly believe when Canada first got involved in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, it was much needed. We needed to do something in a country that was harbouring terrorist organizations like al Qaeda that helped perpetrate the attack on 9/11. Canadians were, right from the get-go, in the Kandahar region, but, more importantly, there were Canadians involved in Kabul, the capital city, right from the beginning, trying to make fundamental changes to the way that country worked, by a mentoring and strategic advisory team that was in Kabul.
The focus was on that training for quite some time, until about the 2006 time frame, when the Canadian Armed Forces were then deployed and the Liberal government of the day decided it was time for Canada to step up and engage in the fighting that was going on in the south and, in particular, in the Kandahar region. Our Canadian Armed Forces soldiers did themselves and this country proud with the incredible service and sacrifices they made.
Around the 2011 time frame, we transitioned from the south, back up to Kabul, and focused our efforts and the Canadian contribution as part of the NATO training mission to again try to build institutional capacity. This was all while we were still fighting the Taliban and trying to create a situation of long-term success for the country and the people of Afghanistan. Canada then decided in 2014 to withdraw our Canadian soldiers on the ground, with the exception of a minor detachment that was still supporting our embassy. Ultimately, what we saw happen was the fall of Kabul and Afghanistan back to the Taliban in 2021.
Before I get into the specifics of that, though, I want to highlight the incredible sacrifices 158 Canadian soldiers and seven Canadian civilians made in that country. Some of them I knew very well and personally. I lost six of my own soldiers while I was there, and it was the crappiest day of my life. The only day that was tougher was when we were communicating news to family members after the fact. Unfortunately, we are still losing Canadians to this day because of that mission, due to post-traumatic stress and suicide, which are things we should be doing our darnedest to prevent.
I want to explain a little about who the Taliban are and why I have so much, dare I say, hatred for them and why Canada needs to do more in opposing that regime. As I mentioned already, cattle and sheep get better treatment than the women and girls in Afghanistan.
I moved my combat team in 2007 up to Ghorak to escort an Afghan army company up there to reinforce an Afghan national police outpost. We got there about 24 hours too late because a young, seven- or eight-year-old boy and his father were beheaded and hanged 24 hours earlier because they dared to provide local food and bread to those Afghan police forces.
This is a Taliban regime and if girls try to go to school, they get acid thrown in their face in the streets. They do not respect human rights. This is why I have no problem speaking out against them. This is why the motion is so pertinent today.
The member for Shefford identified the issue of Afghanistan going backwards. I could not agree more. This is why this motion is pertinent to be brought forward and debated today in the House, and why I thank the committee for actually moving this motion. It does allow us to continue to bring attention to the horrific issues that are going on in Afghanistan.
What happened in 2021 is where, again, we saw the fall of Kabul. Instead of us, as a country, focusing all efforts to get those Afghans out, especially those Afghans who helped Canada, in a timely fashion, unfortunately, the government of the day was more focused on calling an election and campaigning, and was not focused on putting all our assets forward.
What really irritates me even more is the signals, the intelligence that was publicly available months and months ahead of what happened in August 2021. As soon as the U.S. government signalled they were going to withdraw their support, there were indications that this was likely going to happen. There are a lot of experts out there who predicted that maybe it was not going to happen as quickly as it did, however, the signs were there and we needed to do more, sooner.
I am frustrated even to this day. I have the privilege to work with members across all parties. We have been working since last October to get former Afghan women members of Parliament out of that country. We started that initiative last October. Unfortunately, we needed to go public in January of this year, because one of those women, a former MP, was killed, just because she represents everything that the Taliban detests. Again, this is why it is so important that we continue to do more.
I have had frank and honest conversations with the Minister of Immigration and I believe his heart is in the right place, but we are not doing enough. Canada is committed to bringing 40,000 Afghans to Canada. I think we are at around the 30,000 mark now. I am still critical that the efforts are in the wrong place, they are on Afghans who have already gotten out of Afghanistan. They are not focused on those who are still stuck in that country, and their situation is getting worse by the day.
We have former Afghans, who have helped Canada and who are here in Canada, who are literally protesting out in the streets this past week and in weeks past, because they cannot get their family out. The bureaucracy behind it drives me nuts.
I just want to say that Canada continues to need to do more. It cannot just be about keeping the Taliban listed as a terrorist organization. As the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who spoke before me, mentioned, we have a government that refuses to list some organizations as terrorist organizations. However, in the end, that is not enough.
We need to do more to put pressure on the Taliban regime to respect human rights, to respect women and girls. If we do not do that, things will continue to slide in the opposite direction.
I will conclude. I do have hope. I have hope that, thanks to the better parts of almost two decades of Afghan women and girls getting educated and seeing that they have a better hope for the future, one of them, one day, would be back in Afghanistan, leading that country. Maybe we will see a day in the not-too-distant future where Afghanistan is a democracy.
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- Jun/12/23 5:59:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague gave an interesting overview of the issue. He talked about post-traumatic stress disorder, an issue I have been interested in since the early 2000s. He also talked about the Canadian government's commitment to Afghan interpreters.
In the summer of 2021, I discovered a large Afghan community in Shefford. Afghan men came to my office asking me to do something because their wives and daughters were being threatened. They feared for their sisters and aunts left behind in Afghanistan.
Women who practise certain professions related to image or appearance, such as cosmetics, are receiving outright death threats. Anything that contributes to portraying women as having greater freedom is condemned. All the previously won rights in Afghanistan are being rolled back.
I would like my colleague to comment on the Canadian government's commitment to these interpreters and the consequences for the women and girls left behind in Afghanistan.
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- Jun/12/23 6:00:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I talked about that at length. That is the challenge. The Afghans do not treat women and girls to the same level as everybody else. They literally will put controls in place. We have seen in the last year alone, that they took away the right for elementary-school-aged girls to go to school and, as we just saw the last six months, all university education opportunities for women to be educated in the least.
The good news is that there are still women getting educated. I am well aware of this, through contacts at education, training and opposition and protests going on.
I have a final, quick comment. I do not know if it was the member or maybe the translator, but afghani is the currency in Afghanistan, not the people. It is always “Afghan”. Use the term “Afghan”, not “afghani”.
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- Jun/12/23 6:02:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the short answer is: absolutely. I do not think it should be about numbers. I spoke about how we are focused on the wrong things. What I am scared of is that the government turns around, hits that cap, that quota of 40,000 Afghans, and then it shuts it off.
In the end, we need to get those Afghans who are at the greatest risk, those who helped Canada, who helped the west and who are still stuck in Afghanistan, out. We have got to be committed to that.
As a nation, if we want to be able to leverage local populations, and to have interpreters, cultural workers, people who will help us when we deploy either our military, our diplomats or our non-government organizations around the globe, they need to trust that, by them stepping forward and helping us, when they are in trouble, we are going to be willing to help them.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows that this motion was passed at the justice committee, right after we passed Bill C-41, and today we were able to pass that bill here in the House.
I wonder if the hon. member could talk about the importance of getting aid into Afghanistan, because not everybody can leave, and how important it is for that bill to get passed.
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Madam Speaker, I am here to speak on the concurrence report with respect to the Taliban.
This afternoon I was very pleased to see Bill C-41 pass in this House. It is a very important bill, one that many people have been working on for several months. Most notably, it is something that the justice committee has been working on for the last several weeks.
I believe Bill C-41 is a very important step toward ensuring that those in Afghanistan are supported through the many incredible aid agencies that work in the region, including organizations that have an international span as well as those that are regional. I think it is an important step toward supporting Afghanistan in this moment.
With respect to the Taliban, I think it is very clear that it is an organization that offends many aspects of human rights. I can enumerate the various challenges the Taliban poses, not just to the people of Afghanistan but also to the world. It is an organization that is brutal in its force. It is one that has summarily killed so many people. It is one that limits access to education for women. It certainly limits dissent of any sort, and by no means is it democratic. For it to form government in Afghanistan is deeply troubling and deeply problematic.
The reasons that the Taliban are there today are historical. In part, it is because the west just left overnight. I think history will judge that as a failure of the western world. In many ways, we can go back in history and say that the region of Afghanistan is one that has been impacted by colonialism over the centuries. In the last 50 or 60 years, it has been impacted by the Cold War. In this particular case, the departure of the United States in August 2021 certainly enabled the Taliban to take hold of Afghanistan and cause it to regress back into an autocratic state that violates the human rights of its citizens.
Canada's response, it is fair to say, has been quite challenging, in part because of the complexity of the government structure in Afghanistan, which limited our ability to bring people out, but I am very pleased to see that the number of Afghans who have been resettled in Canada over time is in excess of 35,000 people. I think it is a remarkable number, given that this is probably the second-highest number of resettlements we have ever done, the first one being the Syrians right after we formed government in 2015.
I would say Canada is among the top countries in the world to resettle so many Afghans. Of course, there are good reasons for that. Apart from the presence of many family members here and the needs of those Afghans who were directly supporting the Government of Canada, there is a humanitarian reason that this type of resettlement is so critical. Resettling 35,000 within a period of under two years is a remarkable achievement. It may not seem fair to those who may be languishing in different parts of the world or those who are struggling to get out and rightfully should be able to come to Canada. It may seem frustrating that we took two years to do that.
I can give some examples. This morning, I had a call with my office. We do a weekly meeting at 9:00 a.m. every Monday to talk about casework. One of the cases approved today was a resettlement of a group of five Tamil refugees. They had been in India for the last 13 years. This application took 13 years to process. That is the nature of many cases in the resettlement process, although Canada is the number one resettlement country in the world for refugees.
Notwithstanding that, it was a 13-year process, and we can understand how difficult it is for people like that to resettle, especially those who are fleeing conflict. While the two-year mark may seem long, in the broader sense, it is important for Canada and our government to achieve. There is no doubt that we will achieve the 40,000 mark as set out by the Minister of Immigration, as he enumerated a number of different times. We have seen people arrive at our airports and planes full of Afghan refugees who have come here and are settled. I have met many over the last two years and I have met family members of my friends who have come here as part of the resettlement. It is fair to say that Canada is doing its part and is doing its part disproportionate to our involvement in Afghanistan. It is the right thing to do, and I certainly support the government's efforts. I want to reiterate that I am deeply offended by the Taliban and all that it stands for.
Having said all of this, this is a concurrence motion that forms part of a report from the justice and human rights committee, one that is five lines and is quite simple. It basically denounces the Taliban regime, the Taliban administration and the Taliban itself. As such, we generally have unanimous consent from all parties on this language that was passed by committee. I certainly hope it does not take us a full four hours to have the debate here. I would suggest at this point that we go on to what was in the Order Paper and debate Bill C-40.
If I may, I will highlight why it is so important that Bill C-40 be debated and passed. It is a priority bill for the government. Over the past 30 years or so, it is an issue that has offended Canadians, which is that those who may be wrongfully convicted are spending time in jail and unfortunately have no recourse, or the recourse that is available through the process of ministerial relief is quite arduous. We know the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada has outlined the frustration he has faced during his tenure as minister in reviewing those cases.
It is important that we debate this bill and ensure the justice and fairness for which Canada is known and ought to be known. One of the reasons that people of all backgrounds come to Canada would be reiterated through the passage of this bill and would ensure that there is an outlet available for people to seek redress when they are wrongfully convicted. This is not about opening the doors—
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her thoughtful comments.
I can assure the member that this bill has come forward after extensive consultation with and support from the sector that works in Afghanistan and internationally. I am very content that we are going in the right direction. Of course, with every bill that we pass, there are always questions. None is perfect. Bill C-41 is a good compromise that has the broad support of all the parties in this House.
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