Afghanistan Committee on May 20th, 2022

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Dr. Powell, right now the referral agencies that the government is accepting for Afghans are very limited. Why do you think it is important for the minister to expand the referral organizations for resettlement to other qualified and established civil society organizations that are connected to vulnerable refugees such as members from the LGBTQ2+ communities?

[Dr. Kimahli Powell]

Thank you for the question.

You know, as I said in my remarks, the government clearly identified vulnerable populations. For the LGBTQI+ community, there are specific vulnerabilities and barriers to adequately identifying those persons. There was a clear expectation set on August 13 when those vulnerable populations were announced. We have a rare ability, having demonstrated expertise in evacuating persons, to provide assistance to fulfill the government's promise to resettle those persons. A referring partnership is the tool to allow us to do that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

You are also calling on the government to immediately resettle 300 at-risk LGBTQ2+ Afghan refugees. Should the government do this as a special immigration measure in addition to the 40,000 Afghan refugees they have already announced as their measure?

The reason I ask this is that those numbers are actually filling up really fast now, and there aren't that many spots left. I fear that people will be left behind.

[Dr. Kimahli Powell]

This is a specific ask in addition to the 40,000 committed, because at this stage we do not know if they're going to meet that target. So the answer is yes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Madam Kwan. Your time is up.

This concludes our panel today. I want to thank the witnesses for being here on short notice.

We will now turn to committee business.

Mr. Ruff, you have a motion on the floor right now.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Yes. Thanks, Chair.

Everybody should have received the motion in both official languages. The clerk did clarify that, even before today's meeting, we're still waiting on the majority of these reports that we already asked witnesses to provide during previous testimony. I think it's pretty straightforward, but considering that the government has already conducted these reviews, it would make the job of the analysts a lot easier, especially on part one of our report back, if we got that information.

I think the rest speaks for itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Okay.

Go ahead, Madam Damoff, and then Mr. Baker.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I wish we had taken more time, quite honestly, to hear from our witnesses, rather than doing this. We've just spent time doing committee drafting. Our analysts are about to start writing a report. We've given the analysts instructions. I won't go into what those instructions were because that was all done in camera, obviously.

We need to be cognizant of time. We need to be cognizant of this being a motion on when we report back to the House. I think it is inappropriate to be bringing forward a motion like this now, which could potentially delay the analysts' work. We have probably two or three, or however many we have, of the best analysts in Parliament at this committee. They are doing incredible work, trying to siphon through a huge amount of information.

I'm not quite sure why the honourable member, for whom I have a great deal of respect, feels that we need to pass this motion at this time.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Madam Damoff.

Now we will go to Mr. Baker and then Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, and then we will go to Mr. El-Khoury.

Mr. Baker, go ahead.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

I'm trying to process this a bit and understand better why Mr. Ruff has brought this particular motion forward.

I will ask him if he can explain it a little bit to me. It's maybe just a technical word or something I haven't encountered, but as I read the motion, he says that we “provide the Special Committee on Afghanistan the already completed or draft after action review reports with the respect to the evacuation of Kabul in August 2021..”.

I'm wondering, what is an after-action review report? What is the scope of that? What sorts of information does that typically include? I'm not clear about what that is.

That's my first question. I need a bit of clarification about what the motion is actually asking for before I could proceed.

With regard to the second....

Do you mind, Chair, or do you want me to keep going?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Keep going. You have the floor.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, so that's the first point. If Mr. Ruff would clarify that, I would appreciate it.

The second thing is a question for Mr. Ruff as well. I am trying to envisage what an “after-action review” report is and how it would fit into our study. Obviously, I can't go into the discussion that we had earlier in confidence, in camera, but I would ask for his rationale for asking for this and how it would fit in with what we're trying to accomplish at committee.

I thought that our focus in this committee was about trying to understand how we move forward, and it sounds a little bit like this is about looking back to what happened before August 2021. I'm not clear on how that's relevant.

The first question is: what's the scope of this? I am not clear on that. The second one is: how does it help us achieve our goal as a committee? That would be question two. I am perhaps asking Mr. Ruff if he could clarify that.

I'll keep going, Chair, and then I'll let you decide the order of speaking and stuff.

Those are my questions for Mr. Ruff. Then I want to echo a little bit of what Ms. Damoff said during her intervention a moment ago. In her intervention, Ms. Damoff spoke to the timing of witnesses being brought forward. Assuming we can get our heads around what it is that we mean by these after-action reports and, secondly, how they re relevant, I agree with Ms. Damoff that bringing it forward now, when we have very a limited number of meetings left—I think it's two—and a deadline to meet....

I guess I'm trying to figure out why, if these things are important to the writing of the report, this motion wasn't brought forward a little sooner. That would have allowed the committee to consider this, hear from witnesses and cross-reference whatever information these reports would have with what we're hearing from witness testimony and ensure that the analysts can incorporate these properly. I don't know how these would help us constructively advance the report if they're being requested at this particular juncture when we are in the process of getting this report done by the committee's required deadline.

Those are the three questions I have, and I am hopeful that Mr. Ruff could help answer those for me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Baker.

We have a speaking list; Mr. El-Khoury, then Madam Kwan, and then Mr. Tony Van Bynen.

Mr. El-Khoury, go ahead, please. You have the floor.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe we have only 19 working days left for Parliament to do its work. The most important thing is to finish the report, a report on the very important humanitarian suffering of a country. If we're going to go with the motion and start to delay and to eat time, it might jeopardize our effort to finish the report in proper time.

In reality, we don't want to put a horse in this race. Our horse now should go in order to complete the report, and I hope I won't be obliged to continue to speak and to take my proper time to show the difference between having those documents and describing in detail the situation in Afghanistan and how important it is for this community to finish the report within a proper time.

I would like to hear also from our colleague, Mr. Ruff. What can he say about this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. El-Khoury.

We'll go to Madam Kwan, and then to Mr. Tony Van Bynen.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll be very quick. With respect to the request for these reports, it should be noted that officials presented at the committee to say that these reports have been completed, so they are available. All they have to do, really, is just make them available to the committee.

As well, I would point out that the committee members have made a number of undertakings for the officials in various departments, and many of those documents have not yet been presented to us, even though they are also ready. The reality is that officials can in fact table all of those undertakings, along with this report, for us to receive this. If they do that as soon as possible, we would then be able to utilize this work towards the completion of the report.

I would add that, without receiving that information, the truth is that they are already hampering the analysts in doing their work, because many of the undertakings were made prior to today and we still have not received them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Madam Kwan.

We'll go to Mr. Tony Van Bynen.

Go ahead, please, the floor is yours.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's refreshing for me to sit in on a committee like this, and perhaps the only benefit I might be able to add is that there's a fresh set of eyes on the discussion and the dialogue.

With respect to the motion in itself, the fact that the date of June 8 is part of the motion and the very broad-reaching description of the information that they're looking at here.... It says they want information from the Privy Council, Global Affairs, the Canadian Armed Forces and “any other government department”.

How many departments do we have that would be engaged in this in the longer term, and specifically which other departments? I think this is such a far-reaching description that it would be very difficult to identify which departments would be engaged in the dialogue. By the 8th of June, would we even know how many of these other groups we should be engaging?

We ran into similar situations when we were in HESA. I do want to acknowledge that Mr. Ruff participated, as did Mr. Chong, in the HUMA committee, but the experience we had in the HESA committee in the earlier Parliament is that we should be very defined in terms of the information we're seeking. A broad-reaching motion like this serves no one, and it's virtually impossible to be able to meet the dateline that's being established here.

While I appreciate the member's interest in making sure that we have a thorough analysis of the issue and that we go forward and make meaningful recommendations, my concern is that we're trying to boil the ocean here. We're looking for way too much information, and it sounds to me, from the discussions I heard earlier, that this committee has been quite thorough.

When I heard some of the discussions earlier, people seem to be quite satisfied, generally, with the information that was available as they were going through the draft report. Why would we want to expand this and to a greater extent perhaps even dilute the effectiveness of this report when we're looking for some solutions that are actionable by the government and when we're looking for some good clean recommendations from this committee that can be initiated and be implemented by the government?

To me, it's somewhat self-defeating. It's trying to get too much information into a report that seems to be on the verge of being prepared. It seems to be on the verge of being ready and seems to be on the verge of going forward.

For me, the motion itself, if at all going forward, should be very much refined and should be amended to be more specific so that staff and the departments that have the information we're seeking have the ability to seek out that information and make it available.

Those are my thoughts. Again, as I say, it's only with the benefit of having some fresh eyes, as Mr. Chong and Mr. Ruff have contributed to the HUMA committee as well.... Those are my thoughts for the time being.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you.

We have Mr. Baker and then Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

Mr. Baker, go ahead. The floor is yours.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I already had an opportunity to speak. So I want to give Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe a chance to comment. I will speak after him.

In short, I do you want to comment, but I would like Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe to go first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Baker, for your understanding and co-operation.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, please go ahead.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is extremely nice of my friend Mr. Baker. I appreciate it so much.

My dear friends, I know that we have the room until 4:30 p.m. We could go on like this indefinitely, discussing the benefits and disadvantages of the motion. We all have an opinion on it already. However, quite frankly, based on what I've heard over the past 15 minutes, it seems that the same argument keeps coming up.

Mr. Chair, I humbly suggest that we proceed immediately with the vote, and that we stop repeating the same argument on the motion that was moved today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, for your suggestion, but as a chair, I have to be equitable and very fair. If hands are up, I can't stop people from making their presentation unless I get clear direction from the clerk that there is a hard stop for the committee. I'm sorry, but I take your suggestion very carefully.

Now, Madam Damoff, please go ahead. The floor is yours.

I'll come back to Mr. Baker after Mr. Tony Van Bynen.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Given the timing and the difficulties that we've had with presenting this report back to Parliament, which I think is something we all want to do, I've had conversations with some of the members here about the importance of being forward-looking in what we present to Parliament. I think that this particular information that Mr. Ruff has asked for is important, but I don't think it should be cause for us to hold back our report.

Therefore, I would suggest an amendment, Chair, that the motion end with a period after “from the respective departments to the Afghanistan committee.” That means we would remove the words “for inclusion in the report back to the House by the 8th of June, 2022”.

The reason I do that is simply so that we won't hold up the report and that we will be able to still table a report if those documents are not available—and I don't want to presume that they're not—but that way, I think we're honouring the spirit of Mr. Ruff's motion while at the same time being respectful of the tight timelines that we do have now. I'm just trying to incorporate what other speakers have said while at the same time honouring what Mr. Ruff is trying to do, so I would suggest that the motion be amended to end after the word “committee” by removing “for inclusion in the report due back in the House by the 8th of June, 2022”, Chair.

You're on mute, Chair. I can't hear you.