Hon. Salma Ataullahjan: Government leader, yesterday, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights began hearing testimony on Canada’s anti-terrorism rules that bar aid groups from working in Afghanistan. Committee members heard from lawyers, professors and charity organizations, but none of the three Liberal cabinet ministers accepted our invitation. Instead, Ministers Lametti, Mendicino and Sajjan sent bureaucrats from Public Safety Canada, Department of Justice Canada and Global Affairs Canada.

Senator Gold, we were told repeatedly during yesterday’s hearing that the government is seized — I repeat, because we heard it five times, seized — with this issue, but nothing is being done. I shudder to think, when the government is not seized with certain issues, what happens with those issues. Meanwhile, our allies have modified their rules to allow humanitarian aid to reach Afghanistan.

What are they hiding? Why send us bureaucrats limited by red tape and who, in some cases, have been in their current positions for only six months?