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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/7/21 11:03:03 a.m.
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All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay. Hearing no dissenting voice, it is agreed. The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay. I declare the motion carried. Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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Mr. Robert Oliphant (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.)

Dec/7/21 11:03:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I begin by congratulating the member for Wellington—Halton Hills on once again being the official opposition's critic and also the critic of the Bloc Québécois and the critic of the New Democrats. I begin today's discussion with two people in mind. The first is Wahida, a young Afghan girl who was nine years old when she was sponsored by the church at which I was the minister in 2001 to come with her uncle from Afghanistan. Over the last 20 years, Wahida has found a way in Canada, shared stories and allowed Canadians to continue to be part of her life in a country that has been torn and wracked by war, civil dispute and international conflict over the last many decades. I call her to mind, because each time we talk about Afghanistan, it is important to remember the people of Afghanistan whose aspirations, hopes and dreams have been shattered again and again. I believe every single member of this House has their best interests in mind. Another woman who is in my mind today is Adeena Niazi. She is the executive director of the Afghan Women's Organization, an organization in Toronto that works extensively in my riding of Don Valley West, assisting refugee claimants and immigrants who come from Afghanistan and are making an important contribution to Canada every day. She reminds me, through the stories of the people she works with, of the families left behind, of the terror and real chaos in Afghanistan, and of the importance for Canada to maintain, build and create new ways of helping the people of Afghanistan. We, on this side of the House, stand firmly in support of the people of Afghanistan, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Over the summer we witnessed the tremendous chaos, difficulties and desperation of Afghan people as their government fell and as the Taliban took over key aspects of safety and security, including the Kabul airport. I watched as people scrambled to try to get to Canada and to other places around the world in safety. There are important questions about that period of time. We acknowledge that those questions are important to be asked. We need to look at every aspect of the situation in the fall of Afghanistan, and of Kabul particularly, and the role of Canada and its allies. There are important questions I believe the opposition has every right to ask. Those questions are being asked by members of Parliament on both sides of this House. Whether they are about the humanitarian assistance Canada needs to provide now and in the future; the military operations, which for Canada ended some 10 years ago, but we have continued to be present in Afghanistan in humanitarian and development ways; or about the tremendous work of our public servants during a very difficult time this summer, I think we want those questions answered. It is fair for Parliament to request those answers on behalf of Canadians and have them, in a reasoned and thoughtful way, be examined by parliamentarians. Where we may disagree is where, when and how that should happen. I want to speak about the role of our standing committees. All through the motion today the Standing Orders are mentioned. We have a foreign affairs committee. That committee will be struck shortly. It is part of the standing committee structure of this House. It is charged with engaging, and it can work with other committees such as the defence committee, the citizenship and immigration committee and other committees that are implicated in this topic. We want to be mindful of the best use of our resources. We had a special committee on China that was an important aspect of our last Parliament. That may come back this time. We want to make sure that we are using our time effectively. People often talk about the role of a member of Parliament and how stretched we are, and some people think it is because of our operating budget. I never feel stretched because of my member's operating budget. The scarce resource that all of us have is time. All of us have this scarce resource, which is how much time we are able to put into every topic, but that does not mean that the topic of Afghanistan is not critically important for every one of us. However, let us find a way to do it that makes sure we do it well, carefully, and using the resources we have as individuals and of the House, which are important. We will be asking important questions. We will be asking what actually happened last July and August. We will also ask who knew what, when and where, which are important questions to ask. Also, unlike the Leader of the Opposition, I will not denigrate the public servants of this country. I will not denigrate the tremendous work of our mission in Afghanistan or our armed forces, who jumped in to help with our allies and colleagues from NATO partner countries. They worked carefully and quickly with commercial airlines, as well as with operatives from Public Safety, the RCMP, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, to find ways to have special measures to help not only Canadians who were in Afghanistan, but also Afghans who were at risk, which included women, human rights defenders, advocates, lawyers and NGO partners in Afghanistan. Canadians worked with Afghan interpreters, security agents and the people who kept us safe some 10 years ago. They had worked with us right up until the former prime minister withdrew Canadian troops some 10 years ago. This left us in a very different position than we might have been in if that had not happened. Afghanistan is a place of conflict. It is a place that has continually had internal difficulties and external forces, and I think we should hear about that. We should listen to the stories of our partners and allies to find out what happened, when it happened and what actions were actually taken, so we could actually dispel some of the misunderstandings, and I will not say “mistruths”, being held by the official opposition. I do not blame the Conservatives for not understanding or for not having heard what happened. They were busy on a campaign, as we were. They were busy fighting government-sponsored refugees, for instance. Now they are calling upon us to help. They were extremely busy tearing down the structures and systems that we need to have at play to make sure Afghanistan is helped by Canada. I will be very clear. I have never been shy about criticizing my own government, which is one of the roles of a backbencher. We do that work, but in this case, I want to commend the government. I particularly want to commend the public servants who worked day and night, seven days a week, through a very difficult time as a country was folding in on itself. Of course, there were contingency plans. We have contingency plans for evacuation for every country, which is the way that Global Affairs Canada works. Of course, on the ground, we have a small mission in Kabul that was at the ready to work with our partners, but nobody, frankly, could have predicted the rapidity of the chaos that ensued following the American troop withdrawal. Nobody could have predicted that. I think we need a committee to discuss, and I would argue the foreign affairs committee could do this, what lessons we learned. Were there mistakes made? Could we do it better? Those are absolutely fair, good and reasonable questions, because everyone in this House wants to make sure we have the ability in this country, as a trusted ally, to make a difference in the world. During those several weeks of chaos, my office, like many members' offices, was inundated with calls from people. I represent Don Valley West, and that riding has one of the largest populations of Afghan Canadians, as well as newcomers who are not yet citizens. My office was inundated with calls from family members fearful about those who were trying to reach safety, or trying to reach them to have a conversation. We want to know what systems were put in place, and I understand that. Each one of us was frustrated as a member of Parliament, and it is fair to be frustrated. We also have to recognize that public servants are human beings. They are doing the best they can. The structures are in place to help them. We want to learn from them and hear what they did, without jumping to the conclusion that “nothing”, and I quote the opposition leader, was done. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and it is simply irresponsible for an opposition leader to claim that. Was enough done? Perhaps it was not. Could it have been done better? Absolutely, as everything can always be done better. It is not fair to denigrate our public servants and Canadian armed services, whether they are public safety officers, immigration officers or some of the 200 Global Affairs staff who were mobilized to help the small contingent at the mission that existed in Afghanistan at the time. We have helped the Afghan people in the past, and we will continue to help them. It is one of the prime places we send humanitarian aid. Right now, there is no way we will be recognizing the Taliban. It is a terrorist organization in Canada, but it is nonetheless the de facto government. We are finding ways to work around them, but it is still difficult. The situation on the ground is still tenuous. We have to be absolutely careful about the safety and security of Canadian personnel there, and we have to work in conjunction with our NATO allies, who continued to have forces on the ground after we left them behind. We will continue to build bridges, such as consular affairs. We will also be making sure that we continue to help the 1,400 people who have already been evacuated who were Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada or their family members. Around 1,400 have come back. We still have files open. Some of them are hard to connect with. Some of them have left Afghanistan. Some of them have gone to Pakistan and other countries. We are still in conversation with them and trying to help them. We are also guaranteeing to commit to our plan to bring at least 40,000 refugees from Afghanistan into Canada. Obviously, there are millions of refugees who have already left Afghanistan and are in places outside of Afghanistan. There are also people at risk inside Afghanistan. This includes women and girls, and LGBTQI people, who are at risk. I am getting constant communications from them. We have to find ways through civil society groups and third-party countries to get them into Canada or other safe countries. We do not need to have a monopoly on goodness in this country. We need to work with other countries that share our values and want to make sure that Afghan people are safe. We will call upon the Taliban. We will call upon them to live up to their stated concerns about the well-being of the people of Afghanistan. We will also call them to follow the international rules-based order and the expectations of the international community in the exercise of their of power. We are not going to negotiate with them. We will demand that they do that. Meanwhile, we are going to continue to work to make sure that we find a way to help the most vulnerable people. That is our goal. We have been in Afghanistan before. Previous governments have committed. This government continues to commit and recommit to the people of Afghanistan because, as the Leader of the Opposition did say, we have a stake in this. We have CAF members who have given their lives for Afghanistan, and we have aid workers and veterans who have come home and who care deeply. We are absolutely there, but we are not there just because of that. We are there because that is what Canada does and that is what Canadians want us to do. They want us to continue to be a beacon of light and hope in the world. We will continue to find ways to get humanitarian assistance there. We will continue to find ways to reignite our development projects. We will continue to find ways to support women and girls, and democracy and human rights in Afghanistan, in a very complicated and difficult situation. As I said, I do respect the will of this House to get answers to those questions appropriately, but we will also safeguard the information that will be released by government. No reasonable or responsible government will ever put at risk military strategic plans. We will never put individuals at risk, through their names or identities, and we will never even put at risk the reputations of the people who are attempting to do their very best. They have sworn an oath to Her Majesty and to the people of Canada to publicly serve to the best of their abilities. We are in this together, and I do not believe anyone has ever been elected to opposition. I do not believe that. It is the reality that, after an election, some people find themselves in opposition and others find themselves in government. I have been in opposition. My hope is that the opposition will always find ways to constructively help Canada and the Canadian government make a difference and make positive contributions. Anyone can criticize. Anyone can cut down, but to build up takes more. That is what I would call upon the opposition to do today, to find a constructive and creative way. I have been in contact with members in the third and fourth parties, and I believe there is a way we can do this. There is a way that we can bring this information to the foreign affairs committee to make sure we exploit, in the best sense of the word, what a standing committee is for. The Standing Orders are there to protect the rights of every member of the committee, both opposition and government sides, to further the work. We are open to a very early study on Afghanistan. We are very open to finding a way to work together on this, to be creative, to find answers and to ensure that our number one goal is not to have gotcha moments or to one up each other, but to actually create an environment where we can have a discussion. I have been incredibly impressed with the member for Edmonton Strathcona and her passionate and compassionate approach on humanitarian assistance. I congratulate her on her new role in foreign affairs more broadly and generally because, to me, we are involved in foreign affairs in all of our ways of ensuring that we are finding a way to make our world better. That is why we create differences. No world was ever made better by dropping a bomb. It is made better by giving people hope. We give people hope by making sure they are fed, have democratic rights, and can contribute to the best of their ability to find a way to make a difference for their families and in their lives. We do not do that perfectly. No government in Canada has ever done that perfectly. We can be better, and will continue to work on it. I greatly appreciate the work done by the member for Montarville. He is always extremely sensitive and compassionate. He stands up for the interests of all Canadians and Quebeckers wanting to create a safe, prosperous and equitable world, where everyone can live with dignity. We can work together on this, and that is what I would like to take from this. I am not casting aspersions on the official opposition. I hope opposition members want to work with us as well to find a way through these tricky situations and to not overtax our committee members or public servants. I would sooner they spend more time on humanitarian assistance, creating pathways of communication and dialogue, and working with our allies around the world, than in producing documents that will simply not be helpful to us. I want to find a way to be resourceful, constructive and dignified. I am looking forward to the House—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/7/21 11:23:32 a.m.
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On that note, questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Dec/7/21 11:23:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate the parliamentary secretary. I am relieved he is continuing in his role. With a non-partisan spirit, we worked very closely together in rescuing Canadians around the world at the beginning of COVID-19. I am less pleased with how we are doing in rescuing Afghani women, the people who worked with Canada and the women in Afghanistan's parliament, who are now at grave risk. I agree with him that the member for Edmonton Strathcona has the right approach. What do we do now? How do we get humanitarian relief now? I am less convinced that we need a committee that reports in six months. I am sympathetic to the notion that we should not beat up on our civil servants, but I am talking to people who are working with people trying to get out of Afghanistan now, and they do not believe that the Taliban is the biggest obstacle on the ground. They think our unnecessarily bureaucratic immigration procedures as the Government of Canada are a bigger obstacle.

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Mr. Robert Oliphant

Dec/7/21 11:24:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as usual, I agree with most of what the hon. member has said. First, on the issue of women and girls in Afghanistan, it is critical. It is absolutely essential that we find ways to address it. Do I think we have bureaucratic structures and systems that sometimes get in the way? Absolutely. I have been frustrated, as have others, with respect to all of that. Some of those are put in place to ensure public safety and confidence in the immigration system. I respect that, but I also think we should find ways to cut through them. I do not believe a special committee is the place to do that. We need long-term solutions because this is going to happen again. Let us find a way to do this through our committee structure.

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Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Dec/7/21 11:25:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the failures in Afghanistan are not anything new, especially when it comes to religious minorities and minority groups like the LGBTQ community. As someone who has personally sponsored a refugee family from Afghanistan, I know first-hand that it took the Liberal government four years to get that family here when they were under persecution. I want to correct the member, but this is not to denigrate the civil service at all. It is to hold the government to account for its failures. I went through that process and have seen it, and the Liberals continually fail. We are at 1.8 million cases in immigration backlogs. It is not the fact that the public service has failed; it is the government's failure for creating this bureaucratic mess. We have all seen images of the young women and girls who are being forcibly converted and married. What is going on is devastating. Let me be very clear. The Conservative Party does not want to destroy the refugee class in any way. Actually, we want to make it better because of the bureaucratic backlogs the Liberal government created—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/7/21 11:27:00 a.m.
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I have to give the hon. parliamentary secretary a chance to answer. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Mr. Robert Oliphant

Dec/7/21 11:27:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the officials at IRCC are working day and night to do these processes. This is not something new. I was in opposition during the Harper government, and believe me, I waited years and years to help refugees at that time. The system does not work perfectly. Can we find ways to improve it? Absolutely. Let us take that to the citizenship and immigration committee, which needs to do it. We will continue to stand with Ahmadiyya. We will continue to stand with the Sikh community in Afghanistan. We will continue to stand with persecuted religious minorities in Afghanistan, because that is what we do and that is what Canadians want us to do.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Dec/7/21 11:27:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, frankly I do not even know where to begin. I was listening to my colleagues and I could see a lot of motivation on their part. Nevertheless, this is not the first war we are getting involved in. We know the consequences of getting involved in a war and the consequences of having people work for us and help us in a country that is not our own. We have known all of this for a long time. We should have planned our involvement from the outset and had a vision of the future for these people; the same goes for when we left the country in 2014. Now where are we? We are improvising, asking for things from people who do not even have access to the Internet, and closing the embassy. Every government is at fault. We have to acknowledge that and review this situation to ensure that it does not happen again. Does my colleague agree that we must examine what happened to ensure that girls, women and children never again starve to death or get killed?

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Mr. Robert Oliphant

Dec/7/21 11:28:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree. I believe such a review is indispensable. However, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development must also conduct its own study. That is very important.

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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Dec/7/21 11:29:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to think about how we can work together and how we can work in a positive forward-looking way, but I have to call my colleague out on one of the comments he made today, that is, that nobody could have predicted what was going to happen in Afghanistan. I wrote to the minister in February and explained that this would happen. My colleagues in the NDP have written to the minister as well. People from from the Hazara community had written to the minister and explained what was going to happen in August when we knew the U.S. would be pulling out, so I do want to call him out on that a bit. More importantly, I would like the member to comment, if he could, on the situation we are in. Will the government be coming up with a plan to work with the non-profit sector, CSOs and multilateral organizations to ensure they can get support to the Afghanis, knowing the very complicated scenario we have in Afghanistan with regard to anti-terrorism legislation and whatnot?

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Mr. Robert Oliphant

Dec/7/21 11:30:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, absolutely. We need to work with civil society organizations. I have had conversations with Rainbow Railroad. I have had conversations with a number of organizations that are attempting to find pathways in a very, very difficult situation. I would not say that no one could have predicted what was going to happen. When the decision was made by the United States to withdraw on September 11, contingency plans were put in place, obviously. What we needed to do then was absolutely expedite them to make sure that when the decision was made to advance, we did the best we could. Was this perfect? Absolutely not. Can it be improved? Absolutely, yes. We will continue to do that, and we welcome help and suggestions.

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Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Dec/7/21 11:31:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments rather than a question, and some corrections to make to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. First off, the mission did not end a decade ago. The combat mission ended a decade ago, but we did not leave Afghanistan until 2014. I would like to correct a few members who keep referring to “Afghanis”. That is the currency in Afghanistan. It should be “Afghans”. Next, the member mentioned that— An hon. member: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/7/21 11:31:43 a.m.
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To the hon. parliamentary secretary, we have not finished questions and comments. The hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

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Mr. Alex Ruff

Dec/7/21 11:32:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think the member will find it easier to respond to my comments if he actually listens to them. He talked about time and that nobody could have predicted this. He sort of corrected that in his last response, but this was predicted. His own backbencher, the MP for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, raised a concern with the Liberal government two years ago that this was going to come down the pike, so this should have been predicted. I raised it myself in the national media weeks before the government took action. I will agree with the member. It is the backbenchers' responsibility to stand up and criticize the government at certain times. I am looking forward to members of the Liberal caucus voting for this motion today.

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Mr. Robert Oliphant

Dec/7/21 11:32:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my apologies. I thought you were recognizing the next debater. On the question, let me be very clear that in four months, this government brought in more Afghan interpreters than the previous Conservative government brought here in four years. That is absolutely true. I know those people; they live in my riding. I am in contact with them every day. I understand what that was about. I also understand that the situation changed and Canada continued to adapt. I want to thank the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, who was absolutely helpful in raising the issue. We have constantly been engaged on the issue and will continue to be engaged on it.

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Mr. Kody Blois (Kings—Hants, Lib.)

Dec/7/21 11:33:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always find my hon. colleague's remarks in the House to be very insightful and engaging. During the last intersection, I had the opportunity to ask the member for Wellington—Halton Hills about the concerns I have with the text of this motion regarding the one-month timeline and the committee's ability to basically overrule the parliamentary law clerk as it relates to the redacted documents. Can the member speak about his concerns regarding that particular text?

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Mr. Robert Oliphant

Dec/7/21 11:34:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, obviously we have a concern about that because we already have a taxed public service. We have a holiday period coming up. We think it is unreasonable, and we have to find ways to work around that. We also have suggestions, and we have a proposal right now on how we should be handling documents that we think parliamentarians should have access to. We will find a way—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/7/21 11:34:38 a.m.
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Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saint-Jean.

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Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Dec/7/21 11:34:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, who will give a superb speech that I will be most pleased to listen to. First, I would like to highlight what I believe to be some strong points in the motion presented today by the Conservative Party. As the saying goes, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater, and the motion has some worthwhile elements. I am thinking in particular of the reason why they are asking that a special committee be created. My colleague, the parliamentary secretary, mentioned that he hoped the study would be conducted by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. However, this matter touches on international relations, defence and immigration, a combination of areas that we do not see all that often. In addition, one of the advantages of creating a special committee is that it frees up the schedules of the standing committees, which, as one might expect, will have a lot on their plate in the coming year and will be very busy. I am thinking in particular of the standing committees on foreign affairs and international development, national defence and citizenship and immigration. The study the motion proposes is extensive and could take several months. Tasking a standing committee with this study would likely prevent that committee from focusing on other equally important issues. Finally, there is a need to restore the Canadian Armed Forces' image, a significant issue that I will carry forward and address over the next year. A number of military members have taken it upon themselves to help the local interpreters they worked with in Afghanistan. They have provided private funding to set up houses to keep people safe. If nothing is done and we send the message that some individuals could be left behind, we risk undermining not only the alliances we may want to make with international partners on future missions, but also the Canadian Armed Forces' internal recruitment. For all these reasons, I think it is appropriate to ask the question and to study what went wrong and why allies who had worked with Canada were not evacuated. The wording of the Conservatives' motion raises the issue of calling an election in the midst of the Afghan crisis. It is very interesting and relevant, but is this really the right place to raise the issue? I am not sure. However, if we were to go down this road, I daresay it might be interesting to see how we could put limits on a government's power to unilaterally call an election without being brought down by the House. I doubt that the Liberals and Conservatives would want to discuss this in the context of the motion we are debating, but I still think it is worth raising this possibility. What bothers me about this motion is that the Conservatives seem to have written it more to make the government look bad than to really find immediate and future solutions. I will give an example. Paragraph (m)(v) of the motion calls for an enormous quantity of documents to be produced within one month of the creation of the special committee, which is likely to be voted on tomorrow. One month from now will be January 7. Between now and then, there are about seven or eight sitting days left in the House, people and staff will be on vacation, and they may still be on January 7. On that date, it would be very easy for the Conservatives to say that the government has once again disobeyed an order of the House by not producing the documents requested by the deadline. That deadline, however, is absolutely impossible to meet, so the objective will not be met. Accordingly, I think that we could be a little more flexible, for example by allowing the committee to decide for itself which documents it wants to obtain and the timeline for producing them. These choices can change depending on what happens in committee and what the committee needs in order to plan or amend its decisions. Another aspect of the motion that bothers me is the fact that it is only retroactive in scope. While the Leader of the Opposition talked more about the need for recommendations for the future, it seems to me that it is more about picking at scabs than anything else. Just between us, I do not think that we need a special committee to see that things were botched. We only have ask the members who had all their immigration cases put on hold this summer because of the lack of capacity to deal with Afghan refugee applications. The system was not even close to being ready; cases in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration were already moving slowly, and this just added to it. Afghan refugees do not need a special committee to tell them that things were botched. We only have to ask the 200 Afghans whose names were leaked to the media by IRCC, which put their lives at risk. They do not need a special committee to tell them that things were botched. We only have to ask the 40,000 minus 3,700 Afghans who are still there. Let us ask them if they need a special committee to tell them that things were botched. With that in mind, there is no point to creating a committee whose sole purpose is to analyze the past. It is somewhat akin to the work of a coroner who is asked to determine the cause and circumstances of a death. Their work would not be that important if it simply involved telling us why and how a person died. The coroner’s real job is to make recommendations to prevent it from happening again. That is what I would like to see from the committee that is to be set up. If worst comes to worst, an amendment could be introduced to that effect. If the special committee's sole purpose is to provide feedback, it becomes less useful. I would prefer to have it look at other issues, such as what to do with the people who are still in Afghanistan. There could be millions of them, and they could starve to death in one of the worst famines in human history. How can we get international aid to these people in the immediate future? The committee might consider what kind of diplomatic ties we should have with the Taliban government. Although it is the de facto government, it is not a recognized government, since the Taliban are considered a terrorist organization. Still, we will need to figure out how to deal with them to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid. It is also important to look at government funding. Since the Taliban have been recognized by several countries as a terrorist organization, aid is often frozen. International donors are more fearful, so the money that the government relies on to keep running is not coming in. Under the circumstances, we do not really seem to be grasping this sense of urgency and the need for action right now. Those are not secondary issues; they should be a key focus for the special committee. I think that is what the Conservatives' motion is lacking. I would not be comfortable supporting the motion as written. It is basically smoke and mirrors. Really, it is mud-slinging, and it is not constructive. When I read the motion as it stands, I worry that it will not help anyone other than maybe the Conservatives. Passing this motion will not get any more Afghans out of Afghanistan. It will not get any humanitarian aid into the country. This motion will not do anything to improve diplomatic relations insofar as that is possible. I think there is room for improvement. The Bloc, as always, wants a partner it can talk to and work with constructively. We are reaching out to our Conservative colleagues, not for their good, not for the good of the government and not for our own good, but for the good of those who need it most right now.

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