Mr. Speaker, I would like to share my time with the member for Alfred-Pellan.
I will start in the same manner as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and recognize the significance of the day, the topic under discussion and the late Nathan Cirillo as an individual who will not be forgotten, as colleagues on all sides of the House reflect on that significant day four years ago and what a privilege it is to be able to rise at any given time to address the House. I will now provide additional comment on the matter that is up for debate.
We often underestimate some of the important issues within our communities in all regions of our country. There is such a thing called radicalization and it is quite sad and profound. Many Canadians do not quite understand how it happens in the first place, but we do realize that radicalization toward terrorism happens here in Canada. The sad reality is that Canadians make the decision to leave our country to join and participate with terrorist groups and associations.
That is exceptionally upsetting not only to Canadian society but also to parliamentarians of all political stripes. I do not believe there is a member of Parliament who would disagree with the statement of how reprehensible it is when Canadians make that decision to leave our soil and go to an area of the world where terrorist acts are taking place. The horrific situations that their victims find themselves in is absolutely abhorrent and we want to ensure that Canada plays a leadership role in doing what we can to make sure there is justice for those criminal actions taking place.
It is interesting when we look at what we have been able to accomplish in the last few years. For those Canadians who leave Canada and then attempt to come back, there is a message we want to give them, that they will be arrested, charged and prosecuted. We have seen a government for the first time be successful not only at laying charges, but also in prosecuting and achieving convictions. That is new. We never saw that under Stephen Harper.
Under this administration we have now seen four arrests and charges, and two resulting in convictions. I understand that the other two are still at trial and we are very hopeful and optimistic that those will come to fruition at some point in time in the not too distant future.
Contrast that to what we saw when Stephen Harper was the prime minister. We heard the number 60 being bantered around on several occasions. Under the former government, the rhetoric was very loud. Press statements were numerous and the Conservatives talked very tough about terrorist acts and those leaving Canada and coming back, and what the consequences would be for them. However, the reality and the facts speak for themselves, namely, that no charges were laid under the Harper regime.
We had one member from the Conservative caucus stand up and say that, no, there were three or might have said there were four. Some dead guys got charged, and there was someone else who was charged from abroad who never actually came to Canada. I do not know how factual that is, but I do know that this government takes this issue very seriously. The Minister of Public Safety, on numerous occasions when asked about the issue, has addressed it head-on by trying to reassure Canadians that not only are we looking at arrests, charges and prosecutions, but we also believe in those agencies and security services that play an absolutely critical role in ensuring that Canadians can feel safe in their homes with respect to terrorist acts, and that they have a government that is genuinely moving forward on this file.
The former prime minister had a majority government from 2011 to 2015. However, when we think about those security service agencies, the ones that are on the front lines, we will find that in the time of that majority government from 2011 to 2015, there were some serious cuts, such as on the RCMP in excess of $500 million. Over a half billion in terms of financial resources was taken away from our RCMP while there was a Stephen Harper majority government. There was $390 million taken away from the Canada Border Services Agency. We had serious cuts that went into the millions for CSIS. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority also had $150 million-plus in terms of cuts.
Therefore, I find it somewhat hypocritical of the official opposition to try to give the impression that this government is not moving forward on this important file, when the Conservatives sat idly back and could have done so much more. Instead of dealing with it in a proactive fashion, they administered serious cuts to the services that assisted the government and our society in ensuring that terrorism was being treated in a more serious fashion.
We have heard a lot today about the Yazidis. Again, when I sat in the opposition benches, we heard very little. We did not hear the Conservatives while they were in government talk about the plight of the Yazidis. No one should be surprised that we can count on one hand the number of Yazidi women, victims, who came under the former regime. However, within three years, we have increased that number from under five to well over 1,000. The government understands the importance of this issue.
In the motion that we are debating today is a quote from Nadia Murad from her book. Members will know that Nadia is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a wonderful quote from a book she wrote that encapsulates what I believe is the sentiment of people around the world, which is that we want to ensure that there is a sense of justice, that this criminal behaviour that has been taking place will not be put to the side, that it will not be forgotten, and that we will seek and find those individuals who have taken these sorts of hideous actions against human rights and human beings.
I believe that people would do well by reading what Nadia has written, because there is so much in her wonderful modern-day hero's book.