Thank you.
I'll go back to where I was as far as the election was concerned. It was an unnecessary and expensive election from 2020-21 that interrupted our role in serving the people of Afghanistan, particularly the people trying to get to Canada from Afghanistan who had been allies of Canada in the process of attempting to bring more democracy and a functional government to Afghanistan, which failed in the summer of 2021...our inability to respond.
The issue with that is that Canada is a supposedly viable political entity that is respected less and less around the world, so our democracy, as seen as a rules-based order, is falling apart. This motion addresses that by holding people accountable for what was an effort to circumvent the rule of law and having some people have access to documents that allowed for the immigration of certain people from Afghanistan, who weren't authorized by the government and weren't permitted to come to Canada, but had behind-the-scenes access to documents that allowed them to come.
That was facilitated through the then-minister of national defence's office. The then-minister of defence has disavowed any association with the individual who proved to be responsible for that, who was his chief of staff.
I'm happy to have the support of the other opposition parties in this motion. I'm particularly happy to have the support of Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, who's very concerned, as we are, about the effects this has on international accountability around the world, and of Ms. Jenny Kwan, from the NDP. I will quote her support and her concerns about this from a previous meeting, when she said, “I don't believe that chiefs of staff act on their own without the authorization of their political master.”