Mr. Speaker, I am going to share the time I have with my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Lambert.
We know the situation in Syria is terrible. Let us first talk about the 70,000 people who have been killed there. I would like to take this opportunity to again extend my condolences to the families and loved ones of those 70,000 people. Beyond those who have died, however, there are also the living who are experiencing terrible suffering right now.
For the past few months especially, we have seen a massive influx of refugees into the neighbouring countries, including Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. In January 2013, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees counted 500,000 refugees. Half a million refugees is a huge number. Four short months later, there are 1.3 million refugees in the neighbouring countries. Some people believe that the number could be even higher because the quicker and larger the influx, the longer it takes to register people. Half of those 1.3 million refugees are children. Over half a million children are living in camps, often in appalling conditions.
All this puts absolutely enormous pressure on the neighbouring countries. Lebanon, for example, could have 1.2 million refugees by the end of the year. That is terrible. Lebanon, Turkey and the other countries are doing everything they can, but they cannot handle the situation alone. No one could. If we take the figures for Lebanon and compare them to the population, for example, it would be the same as Canada suddenly receiving 3 million refugees. A developed country like Canada would have a lot of difficulty taking in 3 million refugees at once. Therefore, we can imagine that countries in the region are facing almost insurmountable challenges, which they certainly cannot overcome without the help of the international community.
That is not all. There are refugees outside Syria, but there are also displaced persons inside the country. We are talking about 4 million displaced persons, approximately half of whom are children. In addition to those 4 million displaced persons within the country, there are 2.8 million people who urgently need humanitarian aid.
A few weeks ago, I was in New York, where I met with representatives of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. They described the situation to me: drug shortages, destroyed water systems, lack of sanitation, destroyed hospitals, schools that have all but disappeared, children in Aleppo who have not gone to school in a year or two. The country is essentially falling apart.
The needs are immense. Without massive international humanitarian aid, the consequences could be catastrophic. This aid is needed immediately. Epidemics are starting to take hold here and there, and things are going to get worse this summer.
To work with refugees outside Syria, people displaced within Syria and people who need humanitarian aid, the UN has asked for $1.6 billion, but it has received commitments for just over half that amount.
I would like to lend my voice to Stephen Cornish, the executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, who wrote an excellent article recently. He said:
We are failing the Syrian people. Right now, women, men and children are suffering and dying needlessly. We can and must do more to help them.
I recently returned from a two-week mission to Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. There I met with Syrians struggling to survive a brutal civil war that has so far killed more than 70,000 people and forced more than one and a half million to flee to neighbouring countries.
I also met with aid workers providing lifesaving assistance--from my own organization, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and from the few others present.
One thing became absolutely clear to me on this trip. We, the international community, are not living up to our responsibility to meet the escalating humanitarian needs of the people caught up in this intractable war.
Truly, we are failing the Syrian people. The medical needs are overwhelming--from shrapnel injuries that go untreated for lack of accessible care, to pregnant women who must risk their lives to deliver their babies, to sufferers of chronic illnesses like diabetes and cancer who can't obtain treatment, to the miserable and unsanitary conditions of the camps for displaced people.
He went on to say:
The conflict in Syria shows no sign of abating, and the needs of the Syrian people are increasing daily. There is no excuse for our continued humanitarian failure. We must act now.
I agree with those comments and with what Mr. Cornish said about how this is not a question of money. We have to admit it. We also have to convince Damascus and the opposition groups to give humanitarian workers access so that they can provide some much-needed aid.
We also have to help and push the neighbouring countries to make it easier for humanitarian workers to gain access and do their work. There are things we need to work on. We must encourage people on the ground to comply with international humanitarian law.
Despite these problems, money remains the key, because in order to have humanitarian workers, there needs to be money to send them there. Of course, Canada has made an effort in that regard, but it barely scratches the surface. The Minister of International Cooperation is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, even though we know from experience that hundreds of worthy projects could have been supported by CIDA.
Could the minister not have taken a small portion of those hundreds of millions of dollars to help cope with this tremendous humanitarian crisis?
The money is there. There is no doubt about it. There is no excuse for inaction. The Syrians, their neighbours and the international community expect nothing less from us.