Mr. Speaker, this is my first time rising in this Parliament, so I would like to thank all of the wonderful people of Calgary Forest Lawn for putting their trust in me and sending me to this wonderful place to be their voice. I am thankful for all of the support from my family and everyone else who got me here.
I rise today in support of this important motion. The fall of Afghanistan was tragic, and the tragedy is still unfolding today. The U.S. made no secret of their troops' withdrawal. It was only a matter of time before the Taliban would advance through the country once American soldiers were out of the way.
When the U.S. made that announcement, veterans, NGOs and experts warned governments around the world that Afghan interpreters, support staff and their families were in urgent need, yet at the time that Kabul fell, Canada had no active plan to respond to the deteriorating situation.
The government conveniently hid behind the excuse of national security while our NATO allies were launching full-scale evacuation operations to get their citizens, and Afghans who had supported them, out of the conflict zone.
It has been about four months since Kabul fell, and we finally saw the first plane of privately sponsored refugees come to Canada last week. After almost 120 days, the government has yet to put a plan or a timeline in place for fulfilling its promise to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees. The government has had months to prepare, months since the U.S. began its withdrawal and months since the Taliban took over the country. To say the situation in Afghanistan is dire would be an understatement. There are increasing food shortages, little to no access to money, and travel outside the country is severely limited.
The Taliban is actively hunting anyone who supported NATO and Canadian forces. The regime is arresting religious minorities, including Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Hazaras and Ahmadiyya Muslims, and charging them with blasphemy, putting their innocent lives at risk and, in some cases, resulting in death. Women's rights leaders, LGBTQ people, pro-democracy activists and anyone who dares to speak out against the Taliban are harassed, tortured and killed. Vulnerable Afghans are stranded in Afghanistan, watching their friends, family and neighbours arbitrarily arrested or summarily shot in the street.
In the middle of the Taliban takeover, the Prime Minister called an unnecessary and unwarranted election. He dissolved Parliament and with it, any accountability his government would have had to face. Whenever we ask the minister of immigration what his government is going to do to address this disaster, he has said that it is complicated, that they did not have enough information and that they are working on it.
Do members know what is hard? Hard is when a person has to hide in the country they fought for, knowing they are on a list and being hunted by a regime with historical ties to some of the most horrific terrorists in history. Hard is living in a country without money or food, unable to feed one's family, practice one's religion or speak one's mind. That is hard.
The government had months to plan for, and now months to evacuate, those who served alongside our forces and in our embassy. Now it makes excuses and talks about a big commitment to settle 40,000 refugees in Canada. Like other Liberal promises, this one will surely be left behind, just as the government left people stranded at the airport.
The situation has only become more urgent after the data breach at IRCC, which released hundreds of Afghan refugees' personal information. When I wrote to the privacy commissioner calling for an investigation, I knew that the government would do nothing about this. I welcome the privacy commissioner's investigation into this life-threatening data breach, and I hope changes are made by the government to prevent further leaks of sensitive data. This incident, along with the government's inaction, gives me no confidence that the Prime Minister or his cabinet will do anything.
There seems to be a lack of urgency coming from the Liberals. It is sad. Afghan refugees feel abandoned. They have been stranded in a country with a regime that is hunting them. My inbox is flooded daily with emails from Afghan interpreters and other vulnerable people desperate for help. They are pleading for someone to do anything to help them. Their calls and emails to IRCC go unanswered. They cannot even get an acknowledgement from the department on whether their case is even being processed or not. It is all well and good for the minister to state that they are in the process, but those families have been left completely in the dark, just like the tens of thousands of individuals stuck in the government's massive backlog of applicants.
It is not just those stranded in Afghanistan. This fall, I met with former Afghan interpreters who were resettled in Canada by the previous Conservative government. Now that the Taliban is back in control, they are trying to get their families out and into Canada as soon as possible. They told me stories of how their families were in more danger now than ever. However, IRCC is dragging its feet, leaving these people in the dark.
When the Afghan government fell, there was no time for the public servants to destroy sensitive documents, so the Taliban now has all the information on anyone who served with the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan military and Canadian Armed Forces. The interpreters, proud of their service in the war, had shared photos and stories on social media. The Taliban took that information too.
Since the Taliban began retaking Afghanistan, they have used any information they can get their hands on to find, target, arrest, torture and kill anyone who served with us and our allies in the war. If the Taliban cannot find the interpreters or support staff, they target their families.
The Taliban send the interpreters messages and emails threatening their families, their parents, siblings, spouses and children. When they realize that the interpreter is in Canada, they begin killing the interpreter’s family members. The government’s answer to this desperate situation is to offer to prioritize family sponsorship applications, the same applications that are in massive backlogs and that were not being processed throughout the pandemic.
I have personally experienced first-hand the inaction and bureaucratic disaster of the Liberal government. In 2015, I helped to sponsor an Afghan family to come to Canada. The family members are religious minorities who were persecuted by the very people who now control Afghanistan.
Before I continue, Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention I will be splitting my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
My older brother, the late Manmeet Singh Bhullar, started an amazing initiative to bring those persecuted Sikhs and Hindus refugees over here. It took four years for the Liberal government to bring those who were heavily persecuted to Canada. This included young women and girls who were being targeted as they walked to school. They were being forced into conversion and forced marriages, and the civil government sat around for four years.
We see the same thing today. It is all due to the bureaucratic, Liberal-made backlog that is causing so many families harm. In this case, it is costing lives. Today, 1.8 million applications are backlogged, waiting to be processed. Families are behind those backlogs. It is hurting families and costing lives.
Let us think of the refugees who are ignored by the government and are left hoping for private sponsorship. If the private sponsorship only happens every few years during an election year, how can anyone say the government is not abandoning these refugees?
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the veterans and active-duty soldiers in Canada, first for their service and second for their tireless efforts in trying to get Afghan interpreters and their families over to Canada after the Taliban took over. It is because of them, other Canadians and people around the world that Afghan refugees are getting out.
These brave veterans have partnered with NGOs to fill the void left by the government. That first plane of Afghan refugees who finally made it to Canada was only possible because of veterans and private citizens who took the initiative and acted. That is why we need to pass this motion to finally get to the bottom of the disaster that has unfolded in Afghanistan and to not let our soldiers’ sacrifice be in vain.
We need to finally act and evacuate those Afghan refugees abandoned by the government. Families of people still stuck in Afghanistan tell me that they live in constant fear, afraid every time the phone rings. They are afraid that it will be the call telling them their loved ones have been killed by the Taliban.
Enough is enough. We must pass this motion to hold the government to account and get to the bottom of its failures. We are a country that prides itself on being peacekeepers, defenders of democracy and a land of opportunity. Now is our opportunity to do the right thing.