44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 11, 2023 11:00AM
- Dec/11/23 2:49:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in a shocking turn of events, just last week, the Conservative Party held hostage the progress and investments that we continue to make in Canadians. When given the chance to support increasing the number of child care spaces in rural and underserved communities, what did the Conservatives do? They voted against.
What does this mean? This means not supporting new and much-needed child care spaces in rural and underserved communities. The Conservatives are just not worth the risk.
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- Dec/11/23 3:41:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his service in Afghanistan and to our country.
It has been inspiring to me to see the deep bonds that were established between Canadian Forces members who served and the Afghan people, and to see the incredible lengths that people who served in Afghanistan have gone, since the pullout in 2021, to assist and support the Afghan people. That goes for not only this member and other members of the House, but also many veterans and members of our military, who are not in elected office but who are nonetheless doing everything they can to raise money and take other actions. I want to salute the service of our veterans and their work supporting the Afghan people. They understand. They have made these sacrifices.
To the member's question about fatigue, those who fought and served understand the immense sacrifice. They have made far more sacrifices than any of us who did not serve in that way have made. They understand the importance of us continuing to stand with the Afghan people.
This is why I talked about the proposals in my speech of refusing to legitimize or tolerate the Taliban and continuing to apply maximum pressure while engaging with and supporting opposition groups. Different opposition groups are organizing and coming together in various ways to oppose the Taliban. We should be opposing the Taliban while actively engaging and supporting the opposition, recognizing that the fight is not over, that it is the birthright of the Afghan people to have freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and that we must be with them until the job is finished.
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Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to listen to my colleague and hear his thoughts. We are in this place right now having this debate. We were not told that this was coming. This has been a bit of a surprise for us. We are trying to think of ways that we could help the people of Afghanistan. I do not think there is a single person in this place who does not think that we should do everything we possibly can, particularly for the women and girls of Afghanistan.
I have to say, though, that I have the list here of the votes that we had over the 30-some hours that we stayed in the House voting because the Conservative Party thought that was a useful thing to do. While they are here telling us that it is vitally important that we support Afghanistan, three times for millions of dollars they voted against supporting international development and foreign affairs efforts. On one hand they are taking away the money that people in Afghanistan need. In Afghanistan right now, we have people who are severely food insecure, who need help, yet we have the Liberals with Bill C-41 making it very difficult to deliver that aid, and we have the Conservatives literally voting to stop it. In fact, they ran in the last election on cutting foreign aid by 25%. How do—
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- Dec/11/23 6:02:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first, as I said, we have to get those who helped us and those leaders, the former Afghan women MPs I talked about, to safety. They are the ones who will eventually go back to Afghanistan, not all of them but some of them, someday, or maybe even their kids, depending on how long this takes, to actually lead that change. That is number one: We have to get out the people who are those leaders of change within Afghanistan.
Second, which was talked about in certain speeches, is supporting those opposition groups. This is where it gets tricky for the west. We like to believe that our standards and our rigid code around human rights and everything, the way we expect people in this country to behave, would apply uniformly across the globe. They do not. Some of the groups that we may want to help are not necessarily going to play by that rule book all the time. It sometimes becomes a tricky situation of trying to pick and support those groups that are less bad. That is where it gets tricky.
That is what we need to do. I am a big believer that in certain things, with the Taliban in particular, where we in the west kind of messed up when I look at it over 20 years, maybe we should have drawn more lines in the sand with respect to the Taliban, or not the Taliban but the Afghan government at the time, telling them not to cross the line, that there are certain expectations and that if they cross a certain line, that is when NATO and the international community will step in and make a difference.
I think that whatever opposition groups we could provide support to, to try to get that change, we need to do that in order to get the Taliban out.
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- Dec/11/23 8:43:13 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I really appreciate that question. We have been talking about homelessness since I entered politics in 2018. It is important that we can continue to build housing across the country to try to reduce homelessness.
I think that my colleague who also voted during the 30‑hour marathon at the end of last week, may know that, on this side of the House, we are prepared to continue supporting projects in collaboration and partnership with communities in need to try to combat homelessness in the country.
I appreciate the work that my colleague does on this, and I hope to be able to continue working with her to eradicate homelessness in Canada.
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- Dec/11/23 10:09:36 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, based on what my colleague said, it sounds like he has a commitment to understanding the importance of supporting indigenous communities across Canada.
I want to ask the member opposite this. His leader, when he was in charge of housing, had a $300-million first nations housing program that managed to build only 99 houses. Is there more of a commitment to build more housing for indigenous communities? How important is it? I do know that the member opposite comes from an area where there are a lot of indigenous communities and that he has a direct connection and relationship with them.
I would like to hear from the member opposite about his commitment to build more housing for indigenous communities, while making sure that it is also a partnership with all levels of government and communities as well.
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