Debates of Dec. 7th, 2021

Opposition Motion—Special Committee on Afghanistan

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Before resuming debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Kenora, Canada-U.S. Relations; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Housing; the hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country, Employment.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your role; it is good to see you sitting in the chair.

As this is my first speech in the 44th Parliament, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Scarborough Centre for placing their trust in me once again to be their strong voice in Ottawa. I will work hard every day to be worthy of their trust and to bring the issues they care about to the government and to the House of Commons.

I would also like to thank all my campaign team and volunteers. While the COVID environment did present some challenges, their hard work and dedication never ceases to amaze me and their energy keeps me going on the longest days. I thank them.

I thank my family, my husband Salman and my sons Umaid and Usman, for their continued support in my political journey.

I would like to focus my remarks today on the immigration aspects of the crisis in Afghanistan and what we can do to ensure as many people as possible who are in need are brought safely to Canada and to ensure they are able to settle safely here with their families and build a new life in peace and prosperity.

I am a firm believer in learning lessons, so what we do in the future can be improved. A post-mortem of the entirety of Canada’s mission to Afghanistan, not just a few select years, would be a valuable exercise to the benefit of Canada’s foreign policy and international aid and development programs.

I would point out that, especially from an immigration perspective, what is happening in Afghanistan is an ongoing crisis. People need help right now. Our focus should be on how we can finish the job and get those who need our help to safety.

Let us first acknowledge the progress that has been made to date.

More than 4,000 Afghans have already arrived in Canada and are being resettled, and some 415 individuals have already arrived through Canada’s humanitarian program, which targets the resettlement of particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals, including women leaders, human rights advocates, LGBTI individuals, persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, and journalists.

Officials at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada are working day and night to process Afghan refugee applications and issue visas. More than 9,000 applications, under the special immigration measures to resettle Afghan nationals who assisted the Government of Canada, along with their family members, have been processed. Officials are doing all they can to stay in contact with and support those who remain in Afghanistan and wish to resettle to Canada.

The biggest issue remains the Taliban’s control of the region, which makes it very difficult to get people safely out of the country. We call on the Taliban to allow safe passage for those who wish to leave.

The people-to-people ties between Canada and Afghanistan are strong, built over the length of our long-term deployment there, as we did our best to help secure the country and provide development and opportunity for all people of Afghanistan.

My community of Scarborough Centre has strong ties to Afghanistan, from business to cultural to personal, and they have watched the events of this past year with deep interest and keen worry. I hear every day from my constituents on this issue. Many are separated from their families, with siblings or parents in Afghanistan. They worry for their safety and for their future, especially the women and girls, for whom, as we all know, life is very challenging and very dangerous under Taliban rule.

Canada and our allies must continue to be clear with the Taliban that they must show respect for basic rights, especially for women and girls. We must find ways to support women and girls in the region who need our help. With winter approaching, it is critical the international community works collectively to meet the needs of vulnerable Afghans

My constituents want to know how their family members can be brought to safety. They want to know what Canada is doing to help them.

Canada has committed to bring 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada. Given the challenges I have outlined, that will be a challenging goal. I certainly welcome all suggestions and ideas for how meeting this goal can be accelerated so the families in my riding and across Canada can be reunited and their loved ones brought to safety.

Already many Afghan refugees have been resettled in the greater Toronto area, and I want to thank local organizations such as the Afghan Women’s Organization and Agincourt Community Services Association that have been working to support and welcome them.

A few weeks ago, I met with a group of recently arrived Afghan refugees. As members can imagine, they are excited and relieved to be here, but they also worry about extended family left behind and what the future holds for them in Canada. We need to ensure they are supported and get answers to their questions and we need to ensure lessons learned from the Syrian refugee resettlement are applied in this program.

I should note that at the heart of both of these programs is the government-assisted refugees program. A lot of attention is paid to privately sponsored refugees, and this is a great Canadian innovation that sees community groups come together to sponsor and support refugee families for their first year in Canada. It is an important part of our immigration and refugee system, but it cannot be our entire refugee program, which is what the Conservatives proposed just a few months ago in their election platform when they promised to do away with government-assisted refugees.

A look at refugee data shows that government-assisted refugees tend to be the more vulnerable, the more at risk, the more in need of Canada’s help. To turn our backs on them is to turn our backs on those that most need Canada's help, and that is not what Canada should be about. The refugees we are helping in Afghanistan are government-assisted refugees and they need Canada’s help. Therefore, my focus is on how we can help make the Afghan refugee program a success and bring these people who need our help here as quickly as we can.

I do not oppose the idea of a special committee, but I think these are certainly issues the immigration and refugee committee could take up and bring its expertise to bear by bringing in witnesses from those familiar with the situation on the ground to organizations focused on resettlement to provide actionable recommendations to the government.

What gives me pause is what seems like a very broad request for documents, many of which are likely to contain information that could compromise national security, military tactics, intelligence sources and methods, and the identity and location of Canadian citizens in Afghanistan or interpreters or contractors who assisted Canada and our allies. I do not see how this would help Canada bring more Afghan refugees to Canada. My constituents are not asking me for documents; they are asking me to help their families, and this request could potentially put their families in danger.

If we truly want to help the refugees, let us get the politics out of the motion and focus on what really matters here: helping those who need Canada’s help.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, the issue is that the government has said it will bring 40,000 Afghans who supported us in our armed forces and helped our efforts in Afghanistan, but only 10% of them are here. We do not even know where that number of 40,000 comes from or whether it covers the number of people who have to get out of the country. It could be more than that. However, it is a number that the government picked and there has been no debate about it, so that could be the kind of question that would be asked at a committee like this.

Earlier today, one of my colleagues from the Liberal Party said that we should be talking about what was happening today or what may happen in the future, not the past. One of the reasons we study history is so we do not make the mistakes of the past, which is very important in this discussion. Sure, we want to do things in the future, but the government has had a lot of time to do those things for the future. We waited and waited until the House resumed, because it was our first opportunity to have a debate like this and to have a committee set up—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the hon. member for all the work we did together on the immigration committee in the last Parliament.

I agree with the member that it has been slow. We need to do better, and better is always possible, but I want to remind him that the department and the officials continue to process applications for Afghan refugees day in and day out. They have mobilized the entire global network to process the visas and issue them on an urgent basis. There are 4,000 Afghan refugees here. Another 500 will be coming this year.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, as a result of this debate, my thoughts are also with our veterans and our troops who served in Afghanistan. Several years later, I find that the message being sent gives them the impression that their mission was futile.

What message should we be sending these military members who, in many cases, sacrificed their lives or put their mental health at risk? How can we help them and ensure that they have support so their sacrifices are not forgotten?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, yes, we need to thank the people who helped the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Canada and Afghanistan have had a long-lasting relationship, with the long deployment, and many Afghan people have been there for our Canadian troops. It is very important that we continue our work and ensure that we bring the vulnerable people here, the people who have helped, as well as those people, especially Afghan women and girls, whose situation is really terrible. We should all figure out ways in which we can do better to bring more people here as soon as possible, so they can start a new life in Canada.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, without a doubt, the hon. member for Scarborough Centre is well connected in her community. As she expressed and hearing the stories from folks who were being settled through this process, they will know the dire consequences their relatives, friends and families are being left with back home.

I think back to the government's attempts to settle 25,000 Syrian refugees. As a former city councillor, one who was working on the settlement side in Hamilton, I have grave concerns about the lack of adequate planning and perhaps supports for local communities in settling these purported 40,000 refugees.

My question for the hon. member is this. What is her government doing to ensure that, while these lofty promises are being floated out there, particularly at election times, local cities and municipalities are going to be adequately equipped and funded to ensure those who do make it here are accounted for?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have been a member and the chair of the citizenship and immigration committee. We have done important work in that committee to ensure that the settlement agencies that do the important work to settle refugees here, as well as new immigrants, have all the supports they need to help. I have seen first-hand the work of those agencies in my riding. I will continue to work with them to ensure they have the support and help they need to serve new immigrants.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, who is someone I am honoured to serve with. As a veteran, he has done numerous missions and tours in Afghanistan and I am looking forward to his comments later. I know that sometimes he can be a little “rough” around the edges, but we are looking forward to his comments.

I am glad to be able to speak to the motion we brought forward on this day of supply, which is asking to set up a special committee to look into the crisis in Afghanistan and get our friends, allies and citizens out of Afghanistan after it fell to the Taliban; to find out what lessons we can learn so we do not make these mistakes again; and to find out why this was not made a higher priority by the government.

It should not have been a surprise to the Prime Minister or anyone in cabinet. We know that on May 2, 2019, CSIS presented a report that said that if the United States decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban would recapture the entire country, including the city of Kabul, in very short order. That report was in 2019. Then, of course, Donald Trump, when he was still president of the United States, announced on February 29, 2020 that he was officially withdrawing and winding down U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Of course, the coalition that Canada had been a part of in Afghanistan would not be able to be sustained without the U.S. in theatre.

The question becomes this: If CSIS warned, based upon sound intelligence, that Afghanistan would be quickly captured by the Taliban, and Donald Trump announced the withdrawal in February 2020, why did the government not act? Instead of planning for the withdrawal and making sure we got our interpreters out before the country started to fall under the control of the brutal Taliban and the harsh conditions that exist there today, we could have been moving people out. Instead, the Prime Minister planned for a selfish and unnecessary, $650-million election. That is despicable.

Many of us on this side of the House and even members on the other side were getting contacted by veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces. They were pleading with all of us to get their friends who were over there out. These were people they served alongside, who supported them as interpreters and drivers and made sure their base camps and forward-operating locations were safe and secure. They served together. They were a team. We lost 158 Canadian soldiers, and over 40,000 served. Our Canadian veterans who served developed great relationships and considered their allies to be brothers and sisters in arms. To then see the government turn its back on these allies was so disheartening.

The true heroes throughout all of this have been those veterans. I would like to mention guys like Corey Shelson, Tim and Jamie Laidler, General David Fraser and General Denis Thompson, among others who have really done yeoman's service in organizing and getting people out of Afghanistan. In particular, because I and my office have been working closely with him, I want to highlight Robin Rickards from Thunder Bay.

Robin has had multiple tours in Afghanistan. He started contacting me over six years ago regarding getting these interpreters out of the country. Under the previous Conservative government, we had a special immigration program for Afghanistan interpreters. It got filled up; people quit applying and it wound down. We were able to get a few more out after that, as the Leader of the Opposition mentioned this morning in his speech. However, the reality is that people like Corey just would not quit, and they forewarned the government and us as members of Parliament. I know the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River worked incredibly closely with Robin as well.

Every time any of us contacted cabinet, whether it was the minister of defence, the minister of immigration, the minister of foreign affairs or the Prime Minister himself, it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Nothing seemed to happen until the fall of Kabul in the middle of a federal election.

These veterans, through the Veterans Transition Network and many other NGOs, raised money to fund the safe houses. Generous donations came in from veterans, current serving members and Canadians at large. They chartered flights, bought airline tickets and continued to build both the air bridge and the land bridge to safe havens for those who were left behind. Of course, because they were relying on generosity and because things started to heat up so desperately, the money for those safe houses started to run out. On behalf of those veterans, a number of us asked in this House and in writing if the Government of Canada would give the organizations $5 million, so that we could keep the safe houses open and keep those interpreters and their families, the hundreds of people who were in the safe houses, safe in Kabul. The government callously said no. Five million dollars is a drop in the bucket around this place, and it would have gone a long way to protecting Afghan interpreters who were waiting to be processed as applicants to come to Canada.

The people in the Veterans Transition Network really did a lot of heavy lifting. They were part of the group that identified and made sure that the people making claims to come to Canada as refugees had served with our forces and had all their documents in order. They were reaching out to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to get all the applications processed, but unfortunately all of that kind of went up in smoke when the fall of Kabul happened. We saw the complete chaos that occurred at the Kabul airport.

Since that time in the middle of August, when we saw the chaos and craziness that happened, our allies, like Germany and the United States, have continued to move out the refugees and citizens at risk, as well as interpreters and support staff to their armed forces, without any problem. They have been chartering flights in and out of Kabul non-stop. That is why the United States is already sitting on something like over 40,000 refugees in the mainland.

However, we are not seeing that happen here. Why is the Government of Canada not chartering those flights or at least making sure there are tickets on commercial aircraft for all those applicants who are sitting there waiting in Kabul or Kandahar to get out?

The Liberals talk a good game. We see the minister of immigration almost throw his shoulder out every question period here, patting himself on the back for getting 4,000 Afghan refugees out so far. The Canadian Armed Forces identified over 23,600, yet IRCC has processed only 14,675 and there are only 4,000 here so far. That means there are 9,600 Afghan refugees, interpreters, LGBTQ community members, and ethnic and religious minorities like the Hindi, the Sikh and the Hazaras, all sitting there waiting to be processed. They made the applications, yet red tape seems to be holding them back.

I have to thank my staff. They have been dealing directly with Afghan refugees, with our interpreters and our friends and allies, including Canadian citizens who are still trapped in Afghanistan. Some of them had to leave Kabul when the safe houses closed. They went back to their homes only to find that they had either been burnt down or were being lived in by the Taliban themselves. There were actually notices issued to arrest them. I know some went back, saying, “If I turn myself in, maybe they won't kill my family and they'll execute only me.”

We have so many stories of people who served with our forces, who served as journalists and who have been left behind and given up on Canada. That is not the Canada we are supposed to be. We are supposed to be the Canada that, because of the great work of our men and women in uniform who go out there and right the evils in the world, stands up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Those people sacrificed blood and treasure in serving Canada. Let us support our veterans and let us bring home those Afghan allies who served with us.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am someone who advocated many years ago, when I was in opposition, that we get Afghan translators to Canada, and I do to this very day. I am joined by my Liberal caucus colleagues and all members of this House in recognizing how critically important it is that we open our doors and accept refugees from Afghanistan. There is no doubt about that. We also believe it is absolutely essential that our committees on defence, immigration and foreign affairs deal with this.

Within the motion there are serious concerns about security. There is information that could potentially be harmful for Canada's future and the best interests of real people today. Does the member not have confidence in our standing committees? Why does he feel the Conservatives were unable to negotiate something? It seems to me to be a bit of an easy way out. Can he explain?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, why would we want to split this work up over three committees, when those three committees can be doing other work? We should be having a special committee, as we have done in the past, such as in the previous Parliament, on Canada-China relations. There have been other committees in the past, like the special committee on the war in Afghanistan, which operated through Parliament the entire time and was outside the Standing Committee on National Defence.

This would be a short-term committee to look at how the government failed and how we can correct it so we can get better in the future. If the member does not want to learn from the mistakes his government has made, I can see that. He has always been in here as an apologist, trying to orchestrate the cover-ups that are so important to the front benches.

If the member is sincere about saving lives, let us get this committee to work. Let us find out what is happening and make sure we can come up with ideas on how to go forward.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, the truth of the matter is that this problem has been escalated between successive governments. The Harper administration, from 2009 to 2011, did offer an immigration stream for Afghan interpreters. However, with that program there were very specific requirements. First, they had to have served 12 months before they could qualify for that measure, and second, it applied only if they had served from 2007 onward. That is to say that if they served before 2007, they did not qualify. If they served 360 days as opposed to 365 days, they did not qualify. It was reported that two out of three of those who applied were refused.

Successive governments have failed Afghan interpreters and collaborators who supported our military. With that in mind, would the Conservatives agree that in going forward we need to take responsibility for past actions and look for solutions to the problem, including waiving the refugee determination requirements?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member from the NDP seems to forget that our Afghan interpreter refugee program was fully subscribed. People used it, and at the end it was just a trickle that was coming in. People who came here were proud to be coming to Canada. They became citizens and they sponsored their families to get to Canada as well.

I am very proud of that program. I am proud of our forces and the job they did in fighting for women, girls and those who could not stand up for themselves in Afghanistan, in liberating villages and in fighting the tough fights in and around Kandahar. We need to be there with those veterans now as they are trying to get their friends and family out.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, it seems to me that there is currently a lack of leadership from the government on the Afghanistan issue. I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I could go on forever.

If there had been leadership from the Liberals, the minister of defence, the minister of citizenship and immigration and refugees, the minister of foreign affairs and especially the Prime Minister himself, we would not be in this situation today. If we had not had that unnecessary and expensive election that was all about the Prime Minister's hubris, we would have had boots on the ground sooner, equipment in the airfield and people moved to safety.

There were so many controls put on the special forces in Kabul trying to get Afghan refugees out that they were not outside the wire. The government would not let them outside the wire. The Ukrainian special forces went and got a bunch of Canada-bound refugees and took them to Ukraine.

That is leadership.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Madam Speaker, considering this is my first speech here in the House in this new Parliament, I want to thank the constituents of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for giving me the privilege and honour of representing them here once again. I thank my family, all my volunteers and everybody who helped get me back here to the House of Commons. It truly is a privilege.

Before getting into the details of this motion, I want to thank all the Daves, Coreys, Pauls, Eleanors, retired generals and so many NGOs and charities that have been working behind the scenes on this issue for months now. This includes the Afghan Strategic Evaluation Team, the Veterans Transition Network, the Journalists for Human Rights, the Afghan Canadian interpreters, Building Markets, Aman Lara and Raven Rae Resources.

I also want to thank a former colleague of mine, Greg from Nova Scotia. He has a full-time job running his own business and he comes home at night and spends upward of five to six hours talking to his contacts on the ground in Afghanistan helping get Afghans and Afghan Canadians across the border, facilitating visas and getting them out of that country and to safety. I thank all of these people.

I want to address why this motion and this committee is so important. There are two key reasons and we have mentioned these already during the debate. First is we have to learn what went right and what went wrong. Canada cannot make the same mistakes in the future.

As I mentioned earlier, it is great to identify what went wrong, but if someone does not learn from it and apply it in the future, it is all a waste of time. This is key for any future diplomatic, humanitarian or military mission, regardless of where it is in the world, as we deal with risks. More importantly, we need to do this so that we can help those Afghans who are still in dire need of our support, and are being actively hunted by the Taliban. Their lives are at risk.

To provide some background to the members here in the House who maybe do not know who I am, I spent over 25 years in the military. I spent two deployments in Afghanistan. The first was in 2007 in active combat, where I depended on these interpreters daily in order to communicate, understand the cultural differences and do my job to help give them a better life.

The biggest thing I remember from that tour, more than anything, is talking to the local Afghans. They are no different from any one of us. People around the world are all the same. They just want to live in peace and prosperity, put food on the table and allow their children to have a better life than them. Under the Taliban, women and girls cannot go to school. We should always be fighting against regimes like this, no matter where they are in the world.

My next deployment was in 2012. I did eight months over there with the Canadian contribution to the NATO training mission. We were actually trying to put the hard work in to develop the institutional capacity of that country. Again, it is impossible to do without cultural advisers and interpreters.

We took one of the regional military training centres in Kabul during that deployment and we turned it into a language school. Not to teach them English, but to teach them Pashto and Dari because a lot of the recruits coming through their military or police forces could not read or write to a grade 3 level. It is hard to fight corruption, fraud and other challenges that Afghanistan faces if one cannot communicate.

We had many Afghans who were helping in NATO missions, helping Canadians and helping Canada accomplish what we wanted to do in that country and now we are failing them.

The Taliban are brutal and I am going to get into a specific example momentarily. Again, as my hon. colleague who spoke just before me, the former shadow minister for defence said, this was predicted; we knew this was coming. The former minister of national defence was briefed on the security situation and the probable Taliban resurgence tied to the U.S. withdrawal over two years ago. Former President Trump gave that deadline and indicated that the U.S. were going to withdraw. This was reiterated by President Biden. The Liberal MP, the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River raised these concerns two years ago with the Liberal government.

Let us go back to some of the situations here. I am going to read from a national media article that I wrote on July 22, months before Kabul fell:

Being able to communicate with a population is essential when you are conducting military operations. Without this, it would be next to impossible to ensure the safety of not only the men and women on the operation, but it would have had major consequences for the outcome of the mission.

This is why the local interpreters, cultural advisors, and support staff in Afghanistan were so essential to Canada’s mission.

They enabled us to be more effective, and quite frankly, without them, there would have been fewer Canadians who would have come home.

During my two tours in Afghanistan, I had first-hand experience with these individuals.

In 2007, on combat operations in Kandahar, these Afghans provided the essential real-time monitoring of Taliban radio chatter that provided my combat team invaluable warning of impending attacks, ambushes and insurgent movement. During shuras (meetings with Afghan elders/leadership), they allowed us to communicate, and more importantly understand the cultural nuances that enabled trust and situational awareness. They took on this vital role before, during and post-combat.

I’ll remind the Canadian government, and all Canadians, that the Taliban does not follow international law. During my deployment in 2007, my combat team escorted an Afghan National Army company to Ghorak to reinforce an Afghan National Police outpost. Just prior to our arrival, solely because the boy delivered bread to the police, a local eight-year-old boy was hung, and his father beheaded by the Taliban. While talking with my own interpreters at that time, they shared their own concerns that this is why many used aliases and always kept their faces covered during interactions in order to protect themselves and their families. I share this horrific tragedy to highlight why action must be taken immediately to bring the interpreters, support staff and their families to Canada.

These Afghans faced danger every day in order to help Canada and were willing to give their youth, and their lives for our shared goal of a freer and more prosperous Afghanistan.

These Afghans stepped up for Canada. Now, in their time of need, Canada needs to step up for them

To get to the motion at hand and why this committee is so important, I am going to actually offer a bunch of solutions that this committee should focus on, providing that we get the support for it today. They have come from these NGOs, charities, people and former veterans who are working behind the scenes, as they were shared with me.

Priority one is to stand up an interdepartmental task force focused on safeguarding and evacuating eligible Afghans remaining in Afghanistan. Priority must be on having a single leader to run the interdepartmental task force empowered to coordinate and execute this.

The feedback that I have been receiving is that for GAC and IRCC, during the evacuation operations by our Canadian Armed Forces, interdepartmental communications were not working. Additional resources have to be brought to bear. IRCC staff are being overwhelmed and likely experiencing vicarious PTSD because they do not have the policies, support and leadership to solve the problems.

Another thing that this committee could be focused on is application processing as 45% of the applicants that certain NGOs are tracking still have not had their initiating email to IRCC responded to in order to make that application. Only 20% of those who NGOs believe are eligible have been issued IRCC numbers that suggest that they might be successful.

None of the employees that Canadian NGOs are tracking who work in Afghanistan to advance Canada's mission have been successful in their application to come to Canada under the special immigration measures.

The majority of applicants with approved applications do not have passports. A mechanism needs to be put in place to get these people who do not have passports out of Afghanistan. Applying for a passport at this time can result in a family being targeted and killed.

Next, we need to leverage the charities, the NGOs and the veterans. The Canadian government needs to find a way to leverage our partners and our vets to get biometrics into Kabul. This would allow the government and NGOs to move people out of the country directly without having to accumulate them in third countries.

There need to be less restrictive funding parameters. I understand that this funding needs to be tracked but right now it is too bureaucratic, too complicated to get the help needed as mentioned to support these safe houses and more.

In conclusion, we need this special committee. We need to learn what went right and what went wrong and we need to ensure the appropriate urgent actions are taken by the government. These Afghans stepped up for Canada. Now, in their time of need, Canada needs to step up for them.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport]

Madam Speaker, that was an excellent speech. I would also like to acknowledge that of all of us, 338 in this House, likely no one has as much experience or perspective on this issue. I want to thank the hon. member for adding to that discourse today. I hear what he said regarding the need for a committee. I also appreciate that he did not just stand up and talk about problems; he also presented quite a lot of solutions.

I also heard my colleague and friend, and others on the opposite side, talk about how responsive various ministers have been and they have appreciated that access.

Since this is an emergency, since we need to move fast, since lives are at stake and we all know how long parliamentary committees take to actually get work done, how is this the most proactive and urgent way to find solutions like the ones that he presented? Why is a parliamentary committee the fastest way to get urgent work done?

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned, this committee would be there not only for the urgency and to make sure we identify key ways to move it forward, these are measures that have been suggested to the government already, but are not getting traction. By us shining a light on the problem through the committee process, we are going to attract that.

As I mentioned, another issue is about learning for the future. If we do not learn from what went right and what went wrong and we do not capture that properly and understand where the challenges are across departments, we are doomed to make the same mistake on a future mission and we are going to have a heck of a lot more trouble getting those interpreters and foreign nationals to work with us in future missions.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague with whom I served on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. I have a lot of respect for him. His speech had substance and helped us truly understand what is going on and what things are like there. His speech was quite moving.

We learned earlier that 500 Afghans are expected to arrive in the coming days. Does he think that the Canadian government could welcome more than just 500 people every once in a while?

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

The short answer is yes. It was already brought up by previous speakers. Our Globemasters have the capacity to bring out hundreds of people per flight. I think the record was almost 800 on one flight alone, so the capacity exists to get these Afghans to Canada in a much more expedited fashion. This is all about risk assessment. We are not getting them directly out of Afghanistan anymore because the Taliban controls everything. However, as we work with the other solutions that I propose, we can definitely bring more of them to Canada faster.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for his service to this country and indeed all hon. members in this House who have served our military prior to their service as members of Parliament.

Given what the member has described in terms of our moral obligation to the Afghans on the ground who served alongside our military throughout operations, I appreciated that he provided interventions on what immediate measures can be taken by the government based on what we have learned. Has the member determined, based on his subject matter expertise, which countries around the world involved in the Afghan war serve as a gold standard for how they supported and ultimately protected those Afghans who served in their respective nations and if so, which nation should we be looking to and which immediate next steps should we take, learning from them?

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is a great question, but unfortunately I do not have the right answer. However, it is definitely something we should be looking at and comparing ourselves to. It is truly important and the member asks a valid question that we should be focused on. It is another issue that this committee could focus on. Ultimately, as some of the previous speakers have stated, the U.S. has some 40,000 Afghans out now, so other countries are obviously doing a lot better than we are.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Madam Speaker, since this is my first opportunity, I want to congratulate you on being appointed Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. I also thank you for letting your name stand and running for Speaker, and, in doing so, contributing to this democratic exercise in the House.

Again, since this is my first opportunity to do so, I want to warmly thank the people of my riding of Montarville who put their trust in me once again and who solidified my majority with 1,500 votes more than I received in 2019. I am very honoured that the people of Montarville have put their trust in me.

That was my 12th election campaign and 11th victory overall. Six of those campaigns and wins were at the federal level. I am particularly proud to participate in this Parliament with all of the members here. I congratulate each and every one of you.

I would like to warmly thank the members of the Bloc Québécois in Montarville, especially the members of the election committee and the volunteers who worked hard to achieve the outcome that we did. Finally, I would, of course, like to thank my family, without whom I would not be able to do this extremely demanding job. I do not think I have to tell any of you that it is a huge challenge for our loved ones, our family members and our friends. I think we should be grateful for the sacrifices they make to allow us to be here and to represent the people of our respective ridings.

In fact, there is no better introduction to today's debate than to talk about the election campaign. During the election campaign and in the days that followed, all the immigration issues in our respective ridings were put on hold because the government was in the process of extricating itself after the gross mismanagement of the situation in Afghanistan, which is what we are talking about today.

The government delayed in taking action and then went into panic mode and dealt with the situation in a haphazard way in the middle of the election campaign. It imposed extremely bureaucratic measures on people who wanted to get out of Afghanistan and who were in the most dire straits. It was an absolute disaster. That is for sure.

While the UN Security Council was calling an emergency meeting to consider what was happening in Afghanistan and while Prime Minister Boris Johnson was recalling the British Parliament, what was the Prime Minister of Canada doing? He was calling an election on the very day Kabul fell. That is how seriously the Canadian Prime Minister took what was happening. As the international community was mobilizing, the best thing the Canadian Prime Minister could come up with was to call an election.

Of course, that led to a number of problems. We have been talking about it since this morning, we are still talking about it, and I imagine we are going to be talking about it for quite some time. Again today, the Prime Minister is saying, “We will be there”. However, think about he Canadians still stuck in Afghanistan in full violation of their constitutional right to return to Canada and our Afghan allies, without whom our armed forces could not have done their work and whose lives are being threatened. What good does it do them to hear the Prime Minister say “We will be there”? Where was the Canadian government when these individuals needed it this summer?

What is rather fascinating is that the government seemed to be taken by surprise by what was happening even though the withdrawal had been announced a year earlier. The Taliban did move quickly, perhaps more quickly than anticipated by the West, but the withdrawal had been scheduled for August 31. It was no surprise because everyone knew that western forces would withdraw on August 31. Why was there such chaos when the withdrawal had been announced in advance?

The confusing communications by the government in the first hours after the fall of Kabul clearly demonstrated that the government had made absolutely no plans for August 31.

As is often the case when political crises or natural disasters occur, the Canadian government moved quickly to close its embassy after the fall of Kabul, literally leaving Canadian citizens still in the country in the lurch and in the dark.

The Canadian evacuation ended on August 26, or a few days before the August 31 deadline. We wonder why the government was in such a hurry to end an evacuation operation when some countries, such as Mexico, were still there after Canada left. Why was Mexico able to maintain a presence in the country while Canada decided it was time to decamp?

We heard today from the Minister of Foreign Affairs that we need to learn from what happened so that we can do better. This brings us to the heart of the motion we have before us today. How can we learn from what happened so that we can do better in the future?

The Conservative Party, the official opposition, is proposing a way to do that through the motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition, without any prior discussion. That is in keeping with how the Conservatives tend to do things and what they did with the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, or CACN, right after the 2019 election. I guess the Conservatives have done all they thought they could do with CACN because, oddly enough, they are not interested in that committee at all anymore.

However, the threat regarding the unlawful detention of the two Michaels and Meng Wanzhou's situation in Canada has now been removed. We are at a crossroads. We now have an opportunity to realign Canada's policy on China, and this is when the Conservatives choose not to continue CACN's work. I was very surprised by that because my Conservative colleagues told me informally that they wanted to do so. Now the Conservatives have come to us with a new gimmick, or what I would venture to call, to quote myself, a “convoluted hare-brained scheme”, with this much-vaunted committee on the situation in Afghanistan.

I read the motion very carefully and I would say that the only quasi good thing I can say about the Conservative proposal is that it prevents us from working in silos.

Since this morning, the Liberals have been asking us whether the Standing Committee on National Defence, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, and the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration could not address this. Yes, they could, but the problem is that only one of those three committees will do it and some important aspects of the problem could fall through the cracks if we leave this to just one committee.

Perhaps one of the only merits of the Conservative motion is that it ensures that we do not work in a vacuum or in silos and that we have a special committee to address this situation and allow us to get to the bottom of things, but what are we trying to get to the bottom of? This is about picking at a scab that the Liberal government caused. As we know, the situation was a fiasco.

Now, we can try to understand why in order to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

What we want to know is how we can get the more than 1,000 Canadian nationals who are stuck in Afghanistan out of there. How can we help our Afghan allies who are still stuck in Afghanistan and whose lives are at risk every day? How can we support the Afghan people who are threatened with starvation? What can we do for the women and girls who are once again under the control of the Taliban fundamentalist government? This is what we want to know, but there is no mention of any of that in the Conservatives' motion.

I want to go through the details of the motion's introduction. Several aspects of the introduction seem to indicate that the intent is to discuss the government's so-called lack of “contingency planning” and “subsequent efforts to evacuate”, but it makes no mention of the humanitarian crisis that is developing in Afghanistan, which is something that we should be considering.

In point (b), the motion gives the whips of each party 24 hours to submit a list of members, which is not a problem. Points (a), (c), (d), (e), (f) and (g) are acceptable. We do not have a problem there. The same goes for points (h), (i) and (j).

However, in paragraph (k) they draw up a list of ministers they would like to call before the committee, probably to put them on the hot seat and score some political points. The Conservatives got us accustomed to that during the last Parliament. Next are paragraphs (l) and (m).

Paragraph (m) is quite fascinating because it asks for a whole series of documents without knowing if they are the least bit relevant. Then it goes on to say that the government has one month to produce these documents. What is the date today? It is December 7. It says one month, which means that the government would have to provide all these documents by January 7. Our Conservative friends figure that the people at Foreign Affairs are going to spend December 24, 25, 26 and 31, as well as January 1 and 2, working on this to satisfy them, otherwise there would be a scandal, contempt of Parliament and then a question of privilege.

We would be hard-pressed to find a better example of political theatre by the Conservative Party. I think our Conservative friends may have had good intentions, but in reality, the motion is riddled with very clear indications that they wanted to make this an extremely partisan exercise.

As I said, what we are interested in is finding out what is going to happen to Afghans facing famine, to the women and girls who are once again being controlled by an Islamist government, to our Afghan allies who risk death every day they remain in that country and to Canadian nationals who are still stuck in Afghanistan. That is what we are interested in.

That is why we asked ourselves how we could amend this motion to make it acceptable, not just a Conservative smoke and mirrors show. As it stands, it would create a committee focused solely on making political hay by picking at the wounds of the past. How can we change it to create a committee that will really do useful work by looking at future-focused solutions, making recommendations to the government and learning from what happened so we can do better, which was the hope the minister shared this afternoon.

Canadian nationals and allies are still stuck in Afghanistan. The people there are facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent years. We must take rapid, constructive action. We have to work together.

While some members of the House have yet to understand the message sent by the voters of Canada and Quebec, they need only look at the results of the last election. The House of Commons ended up with more or less the same composition as the previous Parliament, which was dissolved on August 15. In other words, the voters were reminding us of the mandate they gave us in 2019 to work together. It is possible for us to do what voters asked, what they elected us to do, which is to work together?

It is therefore a little surprising that the Conservatives would move such a motion at the beginning of this new Parliament, when the people have told us they want us to work together to come up with solutions, not to try to find every possible and unimaginable opportunity to score political points.

In that spirit of collaboration, we proposed an amendment to the Conservatives, one that we also submitted to our friends in the other political parties. The Conservatives have considered our proposed amendment, and I believe we are close to a solution that will allow us to embark on a very productive process. At least that is my hope.

If we want to talk about the past, I respectfully submit to our Conservative friends that they should not throw stones because they are living in a glass house in some respects. When the Conservative government ended the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, it was also asked at that time to evacuate Afghan interpreters, and it did not.

Had the evacuation gone ahead at that time, when our hands were not tied and we could have taken action, we probably would not be in the situation we find ourselves in today. If the Conservatives decide to pick at the wounds of the past, they could be seen in an equally bad light. The Conservatives and the Liberals must stop doing this and try to find positive solutions to move forward.

I heard my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman say how proud he was of the Canadian troops in Afghanistan. I agree with him. Having been a member of the armed forces in the past, I can say that we can all be very proud of the work of the Canadian military in Afghanistan.

That said, it is absolutely tragic that 158 of our own lost their lives and many more returned with permanent physical and psychological injuries only to see those they tried to overthrow by intervening in that country return to power.

I would like to move an amendment to the Conservative motion. I move:

That the motion be amended as follows:

(a) by adding, after the words “other Canadian organizations”, the following: “, and that the special committee conduct its work with the primary objective of assessing the humanitarian assistance to be put in place by Canada to assist the Afghan people”; and

(b) by replacing paragraph (m) with the following: “the committee shall determine which documents are necessary to complete its study and issue its recommendations, provided that,

(i) these documents shall be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, in both official languages, within such time as the committee deems reasonable in the course of its study,

(ii) a copy of the documents shall also be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel in both official languages, in accordance with the committee’s instructions for the production of the requested documents, with any proposed redaction which, in the government’s opinion, could reasonably be expected (A) to compromise national security, military tactics or strategy of the armed forces of Canada or an allied country, or intelligence sources or methods, or (B) to reveal the identity or location of any Canadian citizen in Afghanistan or of any interpreter, contractor or other Afghan individual who had assisted the Canadian Armed Forces or other Canadian organizations,

(iii) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall notify the Speaker, who shall forthwith inform the House whether he is satisfied the requested documents were produced as the committee ordered,

(iv) the Speaker shall cause the documents, as redacted pursuant to the committee’s instructions, to be laid upon the table and, after being tabled, they shall stand referred to the committee,

(v) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall discuss with the committee, at an in camera meeting, to be held within two weeks of the documents being tabled, whether he agrees with the redactions proposed by the government pursuant to subparagraph (ii),

(vi) the committee may, after hearing from the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, pursuant to subparagraph (v), accept the proposed redactions or, reject some or all the proposed redactions and request the production of those unredacted documents in the manner to be determined by the committee”.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion, or in the case that he or she is not present, consent may be given or denied by the House leader, the deputy House leader, the whip or the deputy whip of the sponsor's party.

Since the sponsor is not present in the chamber, I ask the deputy whip of the official opposition if he consents to this amendment being moved.