Senator McPhedran: Senator Gold, is Canada doing what most other donors around the world are doing? Other donors are creating exemptions and other workarounds to allow the delivery of their humanitarian aid directly into organizations in Afghanistan without going through the Taliban. Are we doing the same thing?

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, last week the Trudeau government ended several federal COVID-19 aid programs with Deputy Prime Minister Freeland saying, “. . . the time for extraordinary COVID support is now over.”

I can tell you some other extraordinary measures that are no longer needed, Senator Gold, like taking someone’s job and benefits away because they can’t or won’t get a vaccination, or preventing a Canadian citizen from being able to board an airplane or train and move freely inside the borders of their own country. Senator Gold, I have asked you twice before when Prime Minister Trudeau would lift his federal vaccine mandates. You didn’t have an answer so I will ask you again, hoping that the third time is the charm. If the Trudeau government now admits that extraordinary measures are no longer needed to assist Canadians with COVID, when will you also end the extraordinary and punitive federal vaccine mandates?

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, my question is to Senator Gold, the Government Leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, my question is about implementing Canada’s feminist foreign policy through humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. As I think you know, since August of last year I have worked with civil society and governments to try to assist Afghan women at high risk to get out of their country to relative safety. The World Food Programme and UNICEF tell us that we can expect over 1 million Afghan children to die of malnourishment in the coming months.

My question is about the proud moment last year when Canada promised over $56 million in humanitarian aid to be delivered inside the country of Afghanistan, but I’m advised by the Afghan Women’s Organization and others with direct communication lines into Afghanistan that it is not at all clear what is happening to that $56 million. Has it been expended? And if it has, has it been on humanitarian aid to those at risk in Afghanistan — women and girls in particular? Canada shut its embassy and Canadian officials were among the first to flee, so it is hard to get accurate information. Can the Government of Canada answer these concerns from civil society and provide details about more than $50 million in humanitarian aid?