Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise and speak on Bill C-41. First, I want to begin by thanking all of my colleagues from all parties who have been working hard at this, particularly my colleague from Oakville North—Burlington, who has really made this, in many ways, an important part of all of the work that she has done in Parliament.
I think we should be very proud that we are at this point. One of the first things that was said to me, when I got elected, by an NGO that is doing work in Afghanistan right now is that we need to find a way to unlock this problem for the people of Afghanistan, for women and girls and for the organizations that are trying their best to work under extremely difficult circumstances.
Canadian NGOs have been at the front line of many of the most complicated challenges, the most complicated problems and the most difficult situations and circumstances in Afghanistan. They have been the ones that have been prepared to go to places where many other organizations have not wanted to go. They have been the ones that have been trying to support work in the most complex of circumstances.
Our ability to flow funds, our ability for organizations to do work in those areas and our ability for NGOs to be able to do the work that is required of them is really a matter of life and death. We have heard this throughout this debate. We have heard this throughout all of the speeches that at the forefront of our thinking, the forefront of our concern has to be the most vulnerable in Afghanistan and in other countries where this will apply but, in particular, we have been talking a lot about Afghanistan.
Two-thirds of the country now needs foreign aid to develop and to survive. People have literally had to make life-or-death decisions about whether they keep their children or sell them in order to be able to feed their families. The question of education is one that people would love to be able to even think about, but they are too busy trying to figure out if they are going to be able to eat.
We are at a place now where Bill C-41 finally does what so many have been calling for for so long. We have heard different points of view on whether this is the best route or the perfect route.
As we have learned, there is no perfect bill, but we are in a place now where we have the opportunity, as a Parliament, to tell the world that Canada is not only going to be there, that we are not only going to continue the work that we have historically done, but we are now going to make it possible for these NGOs to do the work that, in many ways, was made impossible not by design but by circumstance.
The fact that the Taliban took the decision to enforce legislation governing taxation of NGOs put so many people at risk of criminal liability. What this meant was that organization upon organization had to make the difficult decision of how they were going to engage, whether they were going to take the risks that involved.
This has led to an unprecedented economic humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. We are talking about 20 million people at risk.
Being able to pass this bill, making sure that we come together to get this over the finish line, to send a clear message that Canadian NGOs will be able to do the important work that they need to do, is something that I think we should all be proud of and that we should all do together.
