My big problem with this.... We've gone down a road that I think is not correct. I think the reason for that is that we are making providing international development a crime that we need an exemption from.
We are saying that international development organizations require an exemption, when they shouldn't require an exemption to do their work. They should get to do their work and, in very strange circumstances—like with the Taliban in Afghanistan—they should require an exemption. I would suggest that, in almost all cases, organizations should not have to apply to do the work that they do.
What we're doing here is saying that this narrows the scope of when you need to apply. Absolutely. I don't think any organization should have to apply. I think they should be exempt. Every one of these organizations is, in fact, trying to do life-saving work around the world. From my perspective, we're thinking about this the wrong way. We're thinking about how to protect against funding terrorists, and we're not thinking about the fact that these organizations.... Not every organization has to prove that it is going into these communities for the right reasons and doing the right thing.
I will give you another example. I was thinking. I literally can't think of a country where international development happens where there isn't some terrorist activity.
Let's use Mozambique. It's one of the biggest recipients of Canadian aid. It's one of the biggest recipients of Global Affairs aid. There is terrorist activity happening right now in Mozambique. That means any organization that wants to work in Mozambique now needs to apply for this.
That is not what this bill was intended for. This bill was intended for situations like Afghanistan's, where we have a terrorist organization running the country and substantially controlling the country. If we start applying this to every country where terrorism is happening, we can't have development work in Canada because we have Canadian organizations that are involved in terrorism in this country. It's absurd.
We're thinking about this the wrong way, I think. We're weaponizing it and making it a crime to provide international development. That's not what this bill was intended to do.