- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
Whip of the New Democratic Party
Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- NDP
- Edmonton Strathcona
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,604.97
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Madam Speaker, I do believe I spoke quite extensively during my speech about how Bill C-41 has failed women and girls in Afghanistan. I also spoke about the low ODA, or official development assistance, and how that has failed.
One thing I would also bring up is that we debated this in June. This is an issue the Conservatives are simply bringing up because they want to distract from what the House had on its schedule and was going to be working on. They can put a million concurrence debates up before the House and, frankly, none of them will actually move forward the agenda Canadians have asked us to come here to do.
We did this debate. We have already talked about this. I am more than happy to talk about international development, and the member is right, this did give me an opportunity to talk about my very favourite subject of all, which is human rights in Canada and around the world, particularly the rights of women and girls.
If they really wanted to support women and girls in Afghanistan, around the world and in Canada, they would not have voted against those supports for women and girls. They would not have voted against supports for the gender equity work being done. They would not have voted against foreign affairs being cut. They would not have run in the 2019 election on the 25% cut to development.
They are not who they are trying to make themselves out to be today. It is very clear to me they want to be seen as something their voting record proves they are not.
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Madam Speaker, frankly, I was on the foreign affairs committee when that witness came, so I can be very clear on that, certainly.
I want to talk about international humanitarian law. We were talking about the fact that international humanitarian law means that Bill C-41 was bad legislation that was unnecessary. Sometimes we forget in this place how important it is that Canada apply international law equally around the world. It is really important because it is our reputation at stake. It is what gives us the moral ability to talk to other countries and demand better of them. Right now, we are not applying international humanitarian law or international law equally. I will give a perfect example. Right now, the Liberal Party, the Bloc Québécois Party and, of course, the NDP are very supportive of Ukraine. I am delighted that Canada is playing such a key role in ensuring that humanitarian law is protected in that circumstance. We are using the tools that we have through the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice to ensure that Russia, which is an occupying force, is held responsible for the crimes it commits.
One of the interesting things about the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice is that they are unbiased and look at crimes committed by both sides. That is really key. They are entities that are able to use non-violent ways of resolving conflicts, and that is an important thing that we have, as a globe. However, the International Criminal Court wants, and has asked the International Court of Justice, to undertake an investigation of the crimes that are currently happening and that have happened in Israel and Palestine, and Canada is playing a spoiler in that situation. From my perspective, there is not a soul in this place who is not absolutely horrified and appalled by what Hamas did on October 7. It is a terrorist group, full stop, and the hostages it has must be released immediately, but the Government of Israel is a government, and it and Netanyahu need to be held to a different standard than a terrorist organization is. What we need to make sure we see is that the people committing crimes, on either side of the conflict, are held responsible for those crimes.
What we need more than anything, which I think no one here is going to be surprised to hear me say, is a ceasefire so the 18,000 people who have already died, the majority of them women, children and babies, are not asked to pay the price for the terrorist organization that is Hamas. When Canada applies international law standards differently, and when it looks different in Ukraine than it does in Palestine, what do members think the rest of the world sees? What do they think the world sees from Canada, and how do members think we will respond? When we pick and choose human rights, pick and choose when to apply international humanitarian law and change the channel when it is inconvenient for us, that is not the Canada we need to be. Canada needs to be so much better than that.
I look at the situation we have seen in Yemen. I know it started under Stephen Harper, but, frankly, it has been eight years, which we have heard time and time again, and the Liberals have not fixed it. Why are we still sending arms to a country that is using them on civilians? Last week at the foreign affairs committee, I asked whether we even know whether any Canadian arms are being used in Gaza, and we do not know.
We have to do better. Canada has to do better. We have to have higher standards. We have to get back to that place where we punch above our weight. We are the country that is standing up for democracy and for international law. We stand up for human rights regardless of where one is, what colour one is and what religion one practices. These are the values that Canadians expect from their government and their parliamentarians, so we need to do more.
We need to do so much more for Afghanistan, but this charade the Conservatives have brought forward is a distraction. They are trying to change the channel. I want every one of the Conservatives over there to look in the mirror and ask themselves, if they ever become government or, would they cut foreign aid and cut supports for women and girls in Afghanistan. If there is even a spark of a chance that will happen, I want every single one of them to sit down and stop talking.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand in this place and represent the good people of Edmonton Strathcona.
This is a concurrence debate. We were unaware that this was coming, and so I am going to talk a little bit from the heart and tell members a few of the things that I have been thinking about, now knowing that we are to debate this motion.
As we all know in this place, in 2021, Kabul fell and the Taliban took over Afghanistan. I do not think that any one of us can really understand the horrific consequences that had on women and girls in Afghanistan and what that shift, that change, means to women and girls in Afghanistan who had been given hope for so many years, because there was the possibility for them to go to school, and for them to be teachers, doctors, lawyers or members of Parliament. The women were able to participate in their culture and their country, but in 2021, that was all taken away from them.
I have been working with members across the floor. The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound mentioned earlier that we have a cross-party group that is trying desperately to help some of those women MPs get to safety. It is unbearable how slow it is. One of the worst days I have had as a parliamentarian was waking up and finding out that one of those members of Parliament had been murdered. I know that the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound feels the same as me. I know that all of us in this place are absolutely horrified that these people have not been able to be brought to safety, and so we are continuing to work with civil society, and we are continuing to work across aisles to make sure that we can bring these women to safety.
I also want to tell a bit of a positive story as well, because we often talk about women and girls in Afghanistan and the burden, trauma and absolute horror that they are facing. It has literally been described as one of the worst places on earth to be female. When I am in my riding I like to talk to classes. I think talking to students about democracy and how to be involved in democracy is very important. I think it is a big part of my job. I was a teacher before I was a politician. I was talking to a grade 6 class about how devastating it is that education had been taken away from women and girls in Afghanistan, and a little girl in the front row put up her hand and told me that she was from Afghanistan. She had gotten out of Afghanistan and come to Canada. She was in the front row, and she was studying. She was in school, and she was learning. It is stuff like this that makes me think that we have to fight so much harder.
I have a dear driver, a lovely guy, and his daughter is from Afghanistan. She came to the House last week and spent some time with us here. She sat and watched question period. I hope we were all behaving, although I must say I doubt it. However, it is a pretty important thing to know that there are girls and women from Afghanistan who are getting that education. It means a lot to me.
I do think that it is important that this place be seized with what we can do to help women and girls in Afghanistan. I do think that it is important that we talk about foreign issues and that we talk about humanitarian support. Canada is not playing the meaningful role it needs to play. We have not lived up to our obligations. We have not lived up to our reputation. We have not lived up to what we should do. Our ODA is extraordinarily low.
We are really good at saying things like “We have a feminist international assistance policy”, but we are not very good at actually implementing it. This government loves to tap its chest and say that it is a feminist government. In fact, government members keep telling us that there is a feminist foreign policy, although nobody has ever seen it.
The fact of the matter is, if we are going to be a country with a feminist international assistance policy, which I fully support and in fact I helped write the policy before I was elected, then we need to stand up for women and girls, and that does not just mean in concurrence debates. It does not just mean that when the MP for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan decides he wants to mess with what is going on in the House he can call a concurrence debate and cry crocodile tears for Afghan women and girls.
He did not vote last week to support international development spending; he voted three times to not support international development spending. The Conservative members voted three times to not provide support for women and girls around the world. Folks have been talking to us today about the reproductive rights of women and girls. We know that, under Stephen Harper, the Conservatives cut that completely out of international development funding. I can tell the House something right now: When support for abortion is cut, it does not stop abortion; it stops safe abortion, and people die.
When I asked to do a study on women's rights in the international human rights subcommittee, the Conservative member from Peace River who sits on the committee said he was not interested in doing a study on the rights of women but would be more than happy to do a study on the rights of the preborn, not women who have been born, not women who are in our world who are struggling, but the preborn.
We all know what this is about; it is about the Conservatives' trying to change the channel from their appalling voting record. It is all about the fact that they are trying to change the channel from the fact that they voted against the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, voted against Operation Unifier and voted against support for Ukraine. My goodness, Conservatives voted against the human rights museum. Honestly, who does that?
I was at home this weekend. It was my son's 16th birthday, and I would like to have the indulgence of the House to wish my son a very happy 16th birthday. I was sitting with my family, and members may be surprised to learn that my family is very non-political. None of them can really understand why they have a member of Parliament in the family. We are not one of those families. They all asked me about the nonsense in the House. They wanted to know what that nonsense was, when members had to sit here for 30 hours. I told them they would not believe it, but it cost $2 million for the Conservatives to do the little fundraising kerfuffle that they thought was so important. They asked me whether the Conservatives thought it was a good use of time and whether they thought it was what Canadians want from their politicians. Today is a great day for me, because New Democrats got dental care for Canadians. The Conservatives got a concurrence debate on an issue that their voting record shows they do not even care about. There is where we are at, folks.
Let us talk a little about some of the issues with regard to Afghanistan. I can talk about international development, foreign affairs and international humanitarian law all day, and I am happy to do it. At the initial time when we heard we were doing a concurrence debate, it was going to be about Bill C-41, or the aid to Afghanistan bill. Of course, the Conservatives must have made a mistake, because they do not actually care what they are bringing forward to the House. They are just trying to come up with something they could throw up as a shield. They got the wrong bill and the wrong concurrence motion. Then we had to sort of change direction a little. However, since they had initially wanted us to talk about Bill C-41, I am game. I am keen to talk about Bill C-41, which the the NDP could not support. We were the only party in the House that did not vote for the bill, because it was such a flawed piece of legislation.
Let me explain a little. International humanitarian law exists in the world, and it is very clear that organizations working on international humanitarian efforts have certain protections so they can do that work. These are the people we ask to go into the world, into the most dangerous, most heartbreaking situations that we have on the globe. They do that so they can bring food, shelter and life-saving humanitarian aid. There are international humanitarian law standards in place. Instead of using those standards the way that Australia, Europe, the U.S. and all sorts of countries did, the Liberal government found a weird convoluted route whereby it was kind of like one had to opt out. One is a terrorist until one opts out; this is basically how it works. One has to get a special pass to give humanitarian assistance.
We were able to get some carve-outs through the legislation. We were able to get some of that to work, but I sat in the committee meetings and can tell members that the people who wrote the legislation, and the members of those committees, do not understand how international development works. It does not happen in a sterile environment. It does not start on day one and end on day 12. It is not as definable as that.
The legislation that was put in place is very problematic. In fact, an article that came out on the CBC says that aid groups still say that Ottawa is hampering work in Afghanistan. We started asking for the legislation in 2021. It took years for flawed legislation to come forward. I do not know how many times I stood in the House and asked questions about it. The legislation is still not working; it is still not acting properly. Organizations are still not able to deliver the aid. Realistically, if the Conservatives actually cared about the people of Afghanistan and about getting support to Afghans, they would be more concerned about making sure that the legislation is fixed. World Vision's policy director Martin Fischer says that he is “frustrated and bewildered” that the process is taking so long. He says, “It's hard to understand why the machinery of government is having a hard time putting in place what should be a pretty straightforward...process.” The legislation is still not working. The aid is still not getting to Afghanistan.
As I mentioned it earlier, the Liberals, who have the lowest ODA, or official development assistance, that we have ever had in this country and who are abdicating their responsibility under a feminist foreign policy and a feminist international assistance policy, have brought forward legislation that is overly bureaucratic, is overly problematic and does not work. On the other side, we have the Conservatives, who, frankly, if one were to listen to them, probably do not like women very much.
This is where we are at with that. When I talk about—
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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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Madam Speaker, I have enjoyed working with my hon. colleague on a number of different things and I want to echo his concerns. I was prepared to debate Bill C-40 today. I think it is very important legislation and something that we really should be discussing at this point.
I also want to go back to some of the discussions the member brought forward with regard to Bill C-41. The member would know that I did not vote in support of this bill for the simple reason that I find that there are some real challenges to this legislation. As much as we were able to work together with members of his party and members of other parties to fix parts of this bill, there are still some really outstanding challenges within the bill that I think make it difficult for civil society organizations and non-profit organizations to work within. It is overly bureaucratic, of course, and has some big challenges on definitions.
One of my big concerns is around the potential for politicization, knowing that a future government could use this legislation to act punitively towards the charitable sector and the international development sector. Does the member have those same concerns? Would he like to comment on that?
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Mr. Speaker, this comment goes back to what I was saying before. As much as I think all of us in this place want to get aid to the people of Afghanistan as fast as possible, and I honestly believe that all of us in this place want that, the difficulty of being a lawmaker is that we have to look at the long-term implications of the laws we put forward. What happens if this means there are women and girls in other countries who do not get the support they need because we put legislation in place and because another government chooses to weaponize it? It is a real concern.
I appreciate the work the member has done in Afghanistan. I want to give a huge shout-out to an organization, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, which continues to do everything it can to help women and girls in Afghanistan at a time of great personal risk. One thing we should all continue to think about as we think about Bill C-41 is that the organizations that represent Canada around the world, the CSOs and NGOs, the organizations doing this important work, are heroes. They really do need to be acknowledged in this place.
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Mr. Speaker, we hear from the Liberals that they think they are back. I was not a member of Parliament or a politician in 2015 when the Prime Minister stood up and said that Canada was back. He tapped his chest and did that little thing he does when he is trying to make people think he really means it.
We all thought he did. The Prime Minister said all of the right words, all the right things that we wanted to hear. He said that Canada was back. We were going to be back on the world stage, and we were going to back with peacekeepers. He promised over 600 peacekeepers. He told us we were going to be back on international development and diplomacy, that we were going to be in those conversations.
No one is more disappointed that that never happened than I am. We went through the Harper decade. I was with civil society groups that were working on foreign affairs, international development and sustainable development in the Harper years. I saw what happened under the Harper decade.
We were so looking forward to a shining example of what this country could be. Unfortunately, eight years in, the Liberals have failed to deliver that for us. We have a 15% cut to international development assistance in the budget at a time when we know the world needs Canada to step up more than ever. We have 60 peacekeepers in the field when the government promised 600. We have failures on our diplomatic fronts. Every decision the Liberal government makes puts trade ahead of human rights, ahead of people and ahead of women, every single decision.
However, that is not why I am here today. I just could not let it pass, to have the government tell us parliamentarians that Canada is back. Canada is not back.
We are here to talk about Bill C-41. I will repeat what I just mentioned. I have worked in international development, foreign affairs and sustainable development around the world. I did it for my entire career prior to being a politician, in countries all throughout the world. I have represented organizations. I have done an awful lot of this work.
It is very important work. I sometimes think that, in the House of Commons, we forget that. We forget that our foreign policy is a stool. That stool requires trade, one hundred per cent, and it requires diplomatic relationships with other countries. It also requires development, and we know what happens when we step back from that piece of the stool.
What we are talking about today is basically a humanitarian carve-out so that we would be able to get urgent help to people in Afghanistan, except that is not what this bill is. That is not how legislation works. This would impact the international development and humanitarian sectors for decades because it is law. It is not contextual for the Afghan crisis. I will say, I have stood in the House time and time again demanding that the government do more for the people of Afghanistan. My heart breaks for the women and girls in Afghanistan who cannot go to school, who cannot leave their homes, whose lives are in danger.
The worst day I have had as a parliamentarian was finding out that one of their members of Parliament was murdered because we did not get her out fast enough. What is happening in Afghanistan is horrendous, and we need to do what we can, but this bill is going to have implications longer than just what is happening in Afghanistan. This would have implications around the world, and I do not think the people in the House are treating it with the severity that they need to.
It has been over two years since I asked the government to work with civil society, the non-profit sector and experts in the field to come up with a plan. It has been over two years. It was in May 2021. In February 2021, I wrote to then minister Garneau and said that this is what is going to happen. The U.S. has indicated that they are leaving, and this is what is going to happen. What is the plan?
There was never a plan put in place. There was never a plan to help those people who had worked so hard for Canadians. There was never a plan put in place to make sure that Canadian organizations doing the incredible work on the ground were able to work in Afghanistan.
For two years, we have been asking for this legislation. We asked for the government to work with the sector. I understand that none of us in this place are experts in everything. We cannot be. We have to depend on experts. We have to depend on experts to give us the best advice, but the government did not get the best advice.
The sector clearly asked for a humanitarian carve-out. What it got, in the first iteration of Bill C-41, was a messy, overly bureaucratic, overly complicated criminalization of humanitarian aid and international development. It got a bill that was created by three ministries. Do members know who led that? The Minister of Public Safety. I am sorry, but the Minister of Public Safety does not work in international development.
I do not know where the Minister of International Development was or why he was not part of these conversations. I do not know why we did not hear enough from Global Affairs Canada, but we did not. That is the reality. Therefore, we had a messy and broken piece of legislation come forward because the government refused to listen to the experts. The experts knew what was needed and what would make the lives of those in the sector easier so they could go into Afghanistan and provide life-saving aid and support to its people.
I want to take a moment here because I agree with my colleague from the Bloc, the member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Jean. I worked very well with him. I also want to give a shout-out to the member for Oakville North—Burlington because she was basically given a terrible piece of legislation and told to shine it. When I say a terrible piece of legislation, I think members know exactly what I think of it.
She was told to make it better, so instead of bringing us a law that we could improve slightly, she brought us a dumpster fire that we then had to try to do what we could with, so I want to give her a shout-out. She worked very hard, very collaboratively and very well with me. I worked very well with the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. We all, every one of us, wanted to make sure this bill got help to people in Afghanistan as fast as it could.
When the Minister of Public Safety came to committee, he talked to us about balance. He said that we have to have a balance between protecting against terrorist and protecting international development groups. What I said to him then, and I will say to every member in the House right now, is that the balance is wrong. He got the balance wrong. The balance we have right now criminalizes international development organizations. It is only because we were able to get an NDP amendment through for a carve-out that humanitarian organizations are not in there.
The folks who work within public safety do great work, but they do not understand international human rights law. They do not understand international development rights. They just do not have that line. Therefore, we worked with other parties to try to get this fixed because one of the key things, and I think perhaps something that members do not understand, is ensuring that organizations can maintain their neutrality. It is vital. It is a cornerstone of humanitarian and international development work because we are asking these organizations to go into sectors, regions and areas that are under fire and are very dangerous.
We are asking them to go into some of the worst places on the planet, and often those places are rife with conflict. There are often groups working there who are bad actors, and terrorists who are doing terrible things, so the only way organizations can do that work is if they are seen as neutral, independent and impartial. This legislation makes organizations go to the government to get permission to work in certain areas, which takes away their ability to be impartial and independent.
I raised this when the Minister of International Development was first appointed. As members know, he is the former minister of defence. No offence to the minister, but that was a terrible idea because we spend our entire careers trying to ensure that folks understand we are not the military and we are not the government. We are independent. We are here to help. We are here to provide life-saving supports. That is what the sector does, what it tries to do.
When we put in a minister who is a former minister of defence, how does that look? It endangers the organizations working on the ground. It is an indication that the government does not understand, that it does not care and that it does not get it.
We did vote for the bill to go to committee, because, as I said, we all wanted to make sure that this aid got out to the people in Afghanistan who needed it. When the bill came to committee, we brought forward 12 amendments, and all of those amendments came from the sector. However, only six of those amendments were adopted.
As I mentioned, the key amendment for us was making sure that the humanitarian exemption was finally agreed to by the other parties. It was ruled out of scope, but we were able to bring it forward within the House. However, that was only one fix. That was only one of the things we wanted to ensure were fixed that the sector had asked us to fix.
One of the other things was a list. In this legislation, the government refuses to tell organizations which regions, which areas, they would need to ask for an exemption for, which puts all the onus on the organization. When we stand in this very sterile environment, it seems to make sense that an organization that is going to work in Sudan should ask if Sudan is one of the countries it would need an exemption for. However, that is not how international development works. Some of the Canadian organizations that I have worked with have 40-year relationships in some of the countries they work in. Change for Children in my riding has a 40-year relationship working in Nicaragua, and I can tell members that what is happening in Nicaragua has changed over 40 years.
We are not just asking organizations to check whether or not they can get into a country and do work. We are asking them to check, almost daily, to see if anything has changed, and the world changes. It is not the House of Commons where these organizations are working. They are working in mayhem. They are working in places that are in crisis. They are working in places that are in conflict. It is absurd to ask them to do that, to put that onus on them, because the government does not want to prepare a list of countries, and it is a list that it has to have. If the government does not have a list, it is almost negligence. However, to not be able to share that list with the organizations is shocking to me. It is absurd.
Another thing, which we tried to fix, is that in the legislation there is the term “links to a terrorist group”, which is not defined anywhere. There is nothing in this legislation that would define “links to a terrorist group”. What does that mean? Does it mean a person who rode on the same bus as someone, or who is talking to someone whose sister-in-law is implicated? Nobody knows what it means. It has no legal definition. In fact, I will read from the brief from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, which said:
This is much too discretionary; for example, would distant family ties, former work or school associates, or membership in the same religious community or congregation be considered links? In our work, we have seen how each of these types of “links” have been identified by security agencies as being grounds for suspicion based solely on guilt by association. The example of Afghanistan, a Muslim majority country, is apt in this assistance, as we have particularly observed how Muslims in Canada are subject to this exact kind of guilt by association, leading to increased surveillance, loss of security clearances and employment [and] even includes the sharing of information which has led to rendition, arbitrary detention and torture
This is not good legislation when we have organizations like this one telling us that this does not make sense and that it is not clear.
The other piece I have with this legislation is that, right now, I have been told by the government that it is going to put policies in place to make sure that this all works just fine. However, the problem with policies are that other governments can come forward, and other governments can use the legislation differently. I have a very deep concern that, if we were to get a Conservative government, Conservatives could weaponize international development, and I will tell members why I think that is a concern. It is because they have done it before.
I was in the sector when the Harper government weaponized and refused funding to Oxfam. I was in the sector when the government weaponized it when Bev Oda wrote the infamous “not” on the application for funding so that Kairos, who had been critical of the government, could not get funding. The Conservative government has done this before. They could do it again, and there is no protection in this legislation to make sure that does not happen.
What happens if, all of a sudden, organizations are not allowed to work in Gaza? What happens if, all of a sudden, the government decides to delay providing the exemption? Right now, there are three ministries involved: public safety, justice and international development. I have spent most of my career trying to get funding through Global Affairs Canada and I can tell everyone that it is almost never able to deliver on the timelines it puts forward, through no fault of its own. Some of the best, most devoted public servants in our country are at Global Affairs Canada, but they are under-resourced, understaffed and under-empowered to make the decisions.
Let us add in two more ministries and see how that goes, and let us think about that in context as well. A humanitarian crisis is an emergency. That means that things have to happen in hours, not days. Action has to be taken to save lives in hours. We heard from one of the witnesses that they think they would be able to get a decision back to organizations well within six months. Within six months, people are dying. People need the support, they are dying and hours make all the difference, but we are being told months, and that is from a government that has not been able to deliver on its promises to date. I am deeply concerned about that.
There is another thing I want to bring up very quickly. One of the amendments we were able to get through and that I am very happy about is that there will be a one-year review, so we will be reviewing this legislation in one year. It is part of the reason I think it is very important for the House to look at this seriously and keeps a very close eye on it.
I cannot support this legislation. This legislation goes against all of the principles of international development and international humanitarian law. It does not listen to the sector and to the supports that the sector has asked for.
There is one other thing. We are also the only country in this situation. The U.S. has a humanitarian exemption. The U.K., the EU and other countries were able to do what the Liberal government could not do. They were able to do what the government, with the support of every party in this House, was unable to manage to get done.
I know the bill will pass. It will not pass with my support. I do not believe that this legislation is worthy of being passed. The fact that other parties are voting for it indicates that they have a smaller understanding of international development and humanitarian law. I am glad that the help will get to the people of Afghanistan as soon as possible. I am appalled that it has taken us two years to get to this point, but the international development sector offering people in crisis around the world crumbs and telling them they have to take it because that is all there is on offer is un-Canadian.
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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, I would say that this is very similar to the last question I just answered.
I am open to working with all parties to see if there is a way to improve this legislation. The scope will be something we will have to certainly press toward the very edges of. Again, it is a situation that the government could fix very quickly by bringing forward better legislation.
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Madam Speaker, this is the ultimate challenge we are facing. People are dying, and this legislation would help some organizations get there and provide some assistance at some point.
It has taken 18 months to get this flawed piece of legislation, so we have put the international development and humanitarian sector in this terrible position of deciding whether to take flawed legislation that could have wide implications or vote against the legislation, knowing it is almost guaranteed that we will not see any other legislation. Do we take the bad or the worse? That is not a position any of us want to be in.
We have many recommendations we are going to be bringing forward. I moved a motion in this place to move the bill to committee so we could start that important work. Something needs to be done as quickly as possible. I hope the government will accept our amendments. We have already started drafting those amendments. Hopefully, we can make this bill into something that will help and do less harm.
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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 think what we will hear is that there was a desire to balance the needs of security versus the needs of humanitarian organizations. It is my thought, though, that this balance is completely wrong in this case. That is proven out by what we saw from the United Nations Security Council and what we saw from the U.S., the EU, the U.K., Australia and other countries that were able to do that.
From my perspective, I feel like government members, in fact, were not open to listening to the sector. They were not open to listening to experts. I have already sent a list of my concerns to one of the ministers responsible, and I got back a comment that said, “Thanks for your advocacy.” I sent 15 questions and I got a thanks for my advocacy.
I do have to say that they are not listening to us. They are not listening to Afghans. They are not listening to experts. This should be an easy thing to do. There is support from every party. There is massive support across Canada from Canadians.
I know this is not really an answer for the member, but I do hope it gives some clarity.
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Madam Speaker, I very much enjoy working with the hon. member for Edmonton Manning on many of these files.
Honestly, I want to think that it was a lack of speed. I want to think it was the thoroughness, but the resulting product does not make me think that this was the case.
In fact, I actually believe the government was hoping that this would go away and that Canadians would change the channel and stop paying attention. I think the government forgot how important the Afghan community is for all Canadians and how important it is that the humanitarian sector be able to continue to do that important work.
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Madam Speaker, I have to say I was a bit nervous there for a minute after the Conservatives made it so I was unable to give my remarks last week. I was worried that was going to happen again. I am quite happy they are just cold at the moment.
As always, it is my great delight to stand in this House and represent the people of Edmonton Strathcona. Today, we are talking about something that is very close to my heart and something that I have been working on for most of my career. While I am delighted to stand representing the people of Edmonton Strathcona, I am not delighted to be having this conversation at this moment in time.
In February 2021, six months before the fall of Kabul, I wrote to Mr. Garneau, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, and I explained to him what was going to happen in August of 2021 if the Canadian government did not take action. I raised that again during question period in May 2021 and spoke about how people in Afghanistan needed Canada to stand up.
We all know what happened in August 2021. We all know how we failed the people of Afghanistan in August 2021. We know the reasons for it. I am not going to get into that here. We failed them on immigration. We failed them on humanitarian aid. We failed the people of Afghanistan in so many different ways.
Today, we are talking about a bill that is supposed to fix that failure. Today, we are talking about Bill C-41, which is a humanitarian carve-out. Let me correct that; it is supposed to be a humanitarian carve-out for humanitarian organizations.
We are in this place right now debating a bill that took 18 months to come to fruition, while so many Afghans suffered and starved. The government took 18 months. What we have right now is not even what the humanitarian sector asked for. It is not even what we have been calling for the past 18 months.
I stood in this House and asked for a humanitarian carve-out for humanitarian organizations so that Canadians who wanted to help in Afghanistan could do that and so that Canadians who have decades of experience working with the people in Afghanistan could do that.
I raised that in the House on November 30, 2021. I asked if the minister, at the time, was going to act with the urgency required to make sure there was a humanitarian carve-out in place so that Canadian organizations could work in Afghanistan and could help people in Afghanistan who were suffering so much under the current regime.
Instead, what we have now is a bill that will limit the abilities of humanitarian organizations. Let us make this very clear: This is not just about Afghanistan. This is about all humanitarian contexts. What we decide with this legislation will have impacts in Gaza and Yemen, and it will have impacts in all kinds of humanitarian contexts. While we are looking at it within the scope of Afghanistan right now, it is not just about Afghanistan and every single person needs to understand that.
I was speaking to experts. I am sure many of us spoke to experts within the humanitarian sector. MSF recently put in a published response to Bill C-41. It said:
Criminalizing Canadian humanitarian agencies or their staff for working in territories controlled by terrorist groups would be contrary to existing international norms and laws, most notably the Geneva Conventions, and might even be unconstitutional. There is legal precedent in Canada supporting the claim that, owing to the life-saving purpose of humanitarian aid, it cannot be considered criminal to provide it, even when a terrorist group may accrue some benefit from that aid.
MSF works in some of the most horrendous circumstances in this world. It is saying that this legislation does not meet the needs that needs to be met. I have heard some interesting things.
I have spoken to the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of International Development. I have spoken to all these ministers and asked, “Who is responsible, and when is it coming?” I have also listened to all three ministers tell me that it is someone else's problem, that it is someone else's fault and not to worry, that someone else is dealing with it or that it is too complex for them to undertake.
I want to tell members what some of the other countries have done. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced that:
Australia [would implement] the [UN Security Council's humanitarian] exemption immediately relying [upon] the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945. Accordingly, assistance or activities covered by [the Security Council's exemption]...do not constitute an offence under Australian sanctions laws.
The United Kingdom amended its regulations to indicate that its financing prohibition does not cover the delivery of humanitarian assistance or other activities that support basic human needs in Afghanistan. There is also the U.S. and the European Union. They all amended their legislation. In fact, with respect to the United Nations, on December 22, 2021, the UN Security Council decided through resolution 2615, the drafting of which was spearheaded by the United States, “that humanitarian assistance and other activities that support basic human needs in Afghanistan” do not violate the council's sanctions regime.
The council also specified:
[T]hat the processing and payment of funds, other financial assets or economic resources, and the provision of goods and services necessary to ensure the timely delivery of such assistance or to support such activities are permitted.
That happened on December 22, 2021. Therefore, countries around the world that are our allies who also believe in the rule of law, humanitarian assistance and humanitarian law were able to make this humanitarian carve-out. However, Canada took 18 months and has not provided a carve-out. Let us be very clear: This law is not a humanitarian carve-out. Why is this so important and pressing? Why have I brought this up in the House and written to the ministers time and time again? Why has every party in the House raised this issue?
My colleague from the Bloc just brought up recently how long he has been calling for this. The Special Committee on Afghanistan was calling for this. Why have we all been acting for this? It is because a record number of people in Afghanistan need our help.
Hunger does not wait. It is not waiting for us to have time or for it to be convenient for the rest of us. People are starving to death in Afghanistan. I have to say, Canada has spent billions of dollars, and we have lost the lives of Canadian soldiers on Afghanistan soil. We have a relationship with Afghanistan. We have an obligation to the people of Afghanistan.
They do not need our support when things are going well. The people of Afghanistan do not need us to step up when all is well. However, when six million people are at risk of severe malnourishment, tens of millions of people are food-insecure and cannot have enough food to eat, the economy has failed, there are drought conditions and climate change has made it impossible for the people of Afghanistan to feed themselves is when they need Canada to step up. That is when we need to do the work to help the people of Afghanistan.
Do not get me wrong, Madam Speaker: The Taliban is a horrendous terrorist organization by all definitions. What the members of the Taliban are doing to women and girls in that country right now is so repugnant and disgusting to me. However, we cannot stop helping people because of that. We still have to help people who are there. I would like to have every single schoolgirl be able to come to this country because if they cannot learn in their country, I would like Canada to do everything it can. I would like to say that an unlimited number of Afghans should be able to come here and study.
I know that I am very angry right now, but I will say one thing. I give speeches in my community all the time. I go and talk to students. It is a really important part of our role as parliamentarians to be in our communities.
I was talking to a grade 6 class about the importance of being a parliamentarian and my role as the foreign affairs critic. I talked about how one of the worst things for me was knowing that women and girls could not go to school in Afghanistan. Teaching women and girls fundamentally changes a country; it is the best thing we can do to deal with climate change, to teach women and girls all these reasons.
This beautiful girl in the front row put up her hand and told me that she was a refugee from Afghanistan, and she was in Canada studying and learning. It was such an incredible and beautiful thing to see.
I will come back to Bill C-41. One of the things that I think is very interesting about this is the way our humanitarian assistance has developed in this country. We have an Official Development Assistance Accountability Act in law. There is a law in our country, put in place in 2008. I was thrilled to be part of the civil society groups that were pressing for some of the legislation back then.
We have a law in place, and it says that Canada's humanitarian and development assistance would go to those most in need and that we would support those most in need. Not only is it law; it is Canadian values. My goodness, every Canadian wants to support people who are most in need and who most require our support. How can there be a better case for providing humanitarian support? How could that be possible?
Over the past eight months, close to 10,000 Canadians have joined the Aid for Afghanistan campaign, calling on the federal government to remove barriers to life-saving aid and assistance in Afghanistan. It is absolutely clear that Canadians support providing this humanitarian assistance. This is what they have been asking for.
The restrictions that Canada has in place have prevented Canadian organizations from doing that, from getting life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable and actually living up to our obligations under international law.
This is a country that has a feminist international assistance policy and is supposed to have a feminist foreign policy. From what I have been told, we have one; it is just not written down. I do not know if the government knows how policies work. This a country that is supposed to be a feminist leader and that is supposed to be leading the world, but we know that the impacts are disproportionately felt by women and girls. The impacts of the poverty in Afghanistan are being felt by women and girls. The human rights abuses that are happening in Afghanistan are disproportionately happening to women and girls.
All the rhetoric that we use with regard to humanitarian assistance impacts women and girls more, and yet this carve-out does not help us. I am going to say why it does not help us. First, and I have mentioned this already, it is a registry. It is not a humanitarian carve-out. It is not a carve-out in the same way that the UN, the U.S., Australia, the EU or the U.K had carve-outs. It is not that.
It was also developed despite the expertise in our country. The government did not liaise with, listen to or hear the sector. The sector was clear on what they needed. The experts in humanitarian aid, those who are experts at what they do, told the government what was needed and what they needed to see.
That is not what this legislation is. For the life of me I do not understand why the government would not want to listen to the experts in the field, who know what they are talking about.
Another thing that is wrong with this is that because of the way it is drafted, it puts humanitarian organizations at risk. It does that by actually interfering with their ability to be neutral and to be seen as humanitarian.
I was quite concerned when the current Minister of International Development was appointed. Humanitarian and development organizations spend all their time making sure that they are not associated with the military or defence, that they have neutrality and the ability to do their work on the ground. This bill would limit that. That is why neither the International Committee of the Red Cross nor MSF supports this bill.
We do not know what the bill would look like in other contexts. Right now, the bill has been developed because of what we are seeing in the Afghanistan situation. However, as I raised earlier, it does not talk about what happens if we are talking about other terrorist groups or listed entities. What would the bill mean in northern Nigeria? Can we not provide humanitarian aid there? What about Yemen and Burkina Faso? All these countries have similar challenges, and the legislation would apply to those groups as well. However, we have not heard from the government how it intends to deal with that.
We do not know if the bill is just for Canadian citizens working for Canadian organizations. What about a Canadian citizen working for another organization? What if there is a Canadian citizen working for the United Nations? Do they need to apply to be able to do that work? All of a sudden, the clarity is not there, and organizations that desperately want to get into Afghanistan and provide that help do not know what the bill would mean. They do not know what those expectations would be. They do not know what they would be legally allowed to do, and for an organization, that is terrifying. It is very frightening for any organization to think that it may be forced to stop doing the important work it does because it has broken regulations the government has put in place that the organization does not even understand and that have not been explained.
We do not know how the bill would work with smaller organizations or diaspora organizations. For a long time I have called on the government to increase the support for small and medium-sized organizations and for diaspora organizations. These organizations on the ground know the context and the communities. They have long relationships with these communities, but the legislation before us would make it much harder for them to be able to provide support.
Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan is a phenomenal organization in Alberta. Right now it is doing everything it can to get educational products to women and girls in Afghanistan. Despite not being able to receive funding and all the things that are happening right now, it is still trying so desperately to get education to women and girls in Afghanistan. As Canadians we should be proud of an organization like that, but the legislation would make it harder for Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan to do the work it needs to do.
Then, we look at the processing piece of the bill. We have a situation right now where Global Affairs Canada is not able to process things as quickly as it promised. This is not a slight in any way on the overburdened bureaucrats at Global Affairs Canada. It is not able to move things forward as fast as it would like because it is understaffed and overburdened; moreover, the clarity from the Liberal government has not been there.
We can think about the urgent situation we find ourselves in, and then we have a situation where urgency is required and we are asking Global Affairs Canada to add another layer of burden to those who cannot keep up with the current burden. This is not a system that will work. A carve-out would mean that all humanitarian organizations would be free to go forward. The legislation before us would mean that we have just kicked that can down the road again; once more, we are failing Afghanistan. Once more, the Canadian government has failed to live up to its obligations to Afghans.
I, for one, stand in this place. I am happy to work with anyone to make the bill better so that it meets the needs it has to meet for the people of Afghanistan. I am ready to stand in this place and work with anyone to make sure Afghans are no longer being failed by the Canadian government.
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Madam Speaker, I would speak French but I find when I get upset, it is difficult to find the words in French. I am upset today because what we have in front of us is the situation the government has put us in, being 18 to 19 months too late. We are now having to judge between accepting and supporting bad legislation or giving the organizations that are desperately trying to help the Afghan people no legislation at all.
I will be speaking about my challenges later on today, but I wonder how the member reconciles that. I am finding it very difficult to reconcile this dilemma, the dilemma that will actually take away the rights that humanitarian organizations are by international law entitled to.
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Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following.
I move:
That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House, on the day the House begins debate on the motion for second reading of Bill C-41, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, no later than the ordinary hour of daily adjournment or when no member rises to speak during the debate, whichever is earlier, the motion be deemed adopted on division and the bill be read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
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