Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here today. I think we've been waiting for a long time to engage with you. We very much appreciate this.
The NDP, of course—through my colleagues Heather McPherson, who is the foreign affairs critic, and Alistair MacGregor, who is the public safety critic—wrote to the government on this issue back in December 2021. Subsequently, a follow-up letter was written, in February, to various ministers, asking why action couldn't be taken.
This was especially in light of the testimony presented to the Special Committee on Afghanistan by NGOs that were unable to provide aid on the ground to people who were in desperate need. In fact, World Vision indicated—as did a number of NGOs that came—that, because of these anti-terrorism laws, children were dying of malnutrition. They had packets ready to go and ready to be delivered on the ground, in order to save lives. They were unable to do so.
I'm really struggling to understand why it's taken, basically, two years for Canada to get to this stage, where this Criminal Code change is finally before us for deliberation.