Mr. Chair, I thank my hon. colleague for the comments he made about my request to the Speaker for two emergency debates.
Time and again, on the issue of the Coptic minority, we have asked the government to ensure that we push the government in Egypt for them to be protected.
There have been troubles in that part of the world for many years but lately, since 2005-06, those problems have been escalated. We had the killings of six Christians in Nag Hammadi. As they were coming out of the church from Christmas mass, somebody drove by and killed them with a machine gun. The Canadian government issued a press release and nothing more.
We had the problems on New Year's Eve. When officials of the government were contacted, they were trying to lowball the emergency of the situation of what was critical in Canada.
Then, after Hosni Mubarak left, we had the situation of the church being burned, people being killed and massive sit-ins by the Coptic community. Forty members of Parliament signed a letter asking for the minister to do something. The minister just put that letter on the shelf.
I asked the minister today if he had addressed that situation when he was in Egypt. We did not get a precise, clear answer. We got rhetoric and big words. The minister said that he and the minister of citizenship and immigration were trying to address this issue but I have yet to see concrete action.
The government has failed the Coptic Egyptians and the Coptic Egyptians in Canada in order to address the needs in that part of the world, not only to ensure that the Egyptian government of yesterday and today know what the wishes of its people are but has certainly not even provided assistance in order for this file to move forward.