Thank you, Mr. Kmiec, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am coming to my discussion on the motion that Mr. McLean has brought up. The reason I want to speak about the banana republic and I want to speak about being here in Parliament is to bring about honouring Canada's legacy in Afghanistan. We responded as a government to the humanitarian crisis. We helped people reach safety.
I was fortunate to be able to be at Pearson International Airport to welcome the last flight that came in from Afghanistan and to see the faces of the people and the family members who were on the ground waiting. I met with many of them. I spoke with many of them. There were families there who had waited seven years to reunite with their brother, their mother and the extended family they brought along with them. To see the relief, to see the happiness in their faces—it was priceless. Just like the Mastercard slogan, it was priceless.
“On August 15, 2021, the government and security forces of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapsed. Panic took hold in the streets of the last territory that had been under its control”. The panic was so extensive that the capital of Kabul was under siege at that time. Returning to power via military force was the Taliban, a group whose repressive rule had horrified the world in the late nineties and who had harboured the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001.
I remember that day very well. I distinctly remember September 11, 2001. I was standing at the corner of Trench Street and Major MacKenzie Drive in the city of Richmond Hill, directing traffic right outside of Mackenzie health science centre, the hospital there. My colleague Darryl Rice and I were standing there directing traffic that day when the plane hit. People who were driving by asked us if we'd heard about it. We were flabbergasted at such a horrible turn of events happening in New York City.
The republic’s collapse unleashed shockwaves within Afghanistan and around the world. It signified the abrupt end of a nearly 20-year effort, which had seen hundreds of thousands of international coalition troops serve—with thousands fallen or wounded —as well as billions of dollars spent on security force training, reconstruction and development. As the situation on the ground unravelled, a multinational air bridge was formed. Many were rescued amid volatile and dangerous conditions. However, when the final evacuation flight departed Kabul at the end of August 2021—