Bill C-41

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code in order to create a regime under which the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness may authorize an eligible person to carry out, in a geographic area that is controlled by a terrorist group and for certain purposes, activities that otherwise would be prohibited under paragraph 83.03(b) of that Act (which becomes subsection 83.03(2)). It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Criminal Code

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, the interpreter is saying that the member is speaking so fast that she is having difficulty interpreting. She is doing her best. Could we ask the member to slow down a bit, please?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Of course we need the interpretation to work so that everyone can understand what is being said. The interpreter should have the member's notes. If not, we will be sure to provide them to her.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan can continue his speech.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will. It is my right to speak in the House. I appreciate that.

Transforming Afghanistan was a great and noble goal, but doing worthwhile things is never easy. Supporting the democratic development of Afghanistan was always going to be a long process, and if it was going to work, then it would require a long-term commitment.

Tony Blair is right, in an ultimate sense. The people always ultimately choose freedom over tyranny, but the short-term optimism of the post-9/11 era did not pay enough attention to the need to gradually and painstakingly develop the institutions and political culture of a free pluralistic society over time. We were too quick to want to declare mission accomplished. We cannot expect to simply chase out the bad guys and then roll out the template of free democratic institutions because there is no single template for such institutions.

The core problem was that so-called neo-conservatism was not, in practice, sufficiently conservative. Conservatism, in its essential form, emphasizes the importance of local culture, tradition and familial attachments. To succeed, the institutions and culture of free democracy must be built on that pre-existing local foundation.

There is no single template for democracy because democracy succeeds when it builds on pre-existing cultural structures that have existing legitimacy, which then confer that legitimacy on the emergent democratic structures. This is how democracy was successfully built in the west, especially in the Anglo-American tradition over a long period. If those advancing democracy elsewhere do not build on the existing cultural foundation, then there will inevitably be rival centres of power that compete for legitimacy with the new democrat institutions.

In practice, neo-conservatism was not sufficiently conservative because it did not sufficiently take stock of how deeply embedded traditions and authority structures need to be collaborated with and harnessed in order to build free institutions that are authentic to the local setting over time. Any work of external nation building requires both great patience and even greater humility.

Free societies are not built like buildings. Rather, they grow like trees. Our own long history of halting democratic development in the west building on pre-democratic foundations should have made it clear to us that democratic development was always going to be a long-term project if it was going to be completed.

In one sense, the work of securing democracy is never complete. As the saying goes, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Save for the possibilities of divine intervention or nuclear annihilation, there is no such thing as the end of history. That is as true in Afghanistan as it is anywhere else. The work of building Canadian democracy is not complete, so why should we have expected it to ever be complete in Afghanistan? Of course, the hope of many, and rightly so, was that at some point along the way, external troops would be able to fully withdraw and Afghans themselves would be the ones vigilantly guarding and defending their own freedom, no longer needing outside help.

The critics of continuing western involvements in Afghanistan believed we needed to end so-called forever wars at a certain point and to leave the country to its own work in this regard. This framing of forever wars was highly misleading.

American troops have been stationed in Korea for much, much longer than they have been in Afghanistan. Nobody considers that American presence in Korea a forever war. America's presence in Korea is rather a matter of a contingent of troops helping to guarantee the peace. The withdrawal of Americans from South Korea would create a significant heightened risk of catastrophic conflict, so it is good for America to keep a contingent of troops there as long as is necessary.

The nature of America's presence in Afghanistan was different of course than the nature of its presence in Korea, but the western presence in Afghanistan was still consistent with the gradual drawing down of engagement, more limited air support backing the Afghan army, extremely low casualty figures in the later years compared to the height of the conflict and a trajectory whereby a smaller and less costly presence could, over time, still help sustain local democracy and security.

The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban was not the inevitable result of facts on the ground. It was the result of a political choice that reflected a change in the western mood, the shift from too optimistic, impatient interventionism without sufficient cultural understand to too pessimistic isolationist abandonment.

As we have seen, the politics of isolationism and withdrawal, of putting domestic issues over external security imperatives, has led to global democratic decline, greater insecurity and ultimately a higher risk of costly war. This is why, in an age of further threats to free democracies, we must be vigilant and active, embracing realistic optimism and strategic patience and making the investments and the sacrifices that are required to keep the world a safe place for freedom and democracy.

The quote I read earlier continues with the poignant line, “The spread of freedom is the best security for the free.”

I hear from time to time from constituents who want us to ignore events far away and instead to simply focus on challenges at home, but history teaches us that impulse to retrench from the world always leads to the decline of democracy and liberty and to threats from abroad washing up on our own shores. When this spirit prevails, the long-term costs to our own well-being and happiness are inevitably much higher than if we had been engaged with international events from the beginning. I hope we learn the lessons of that history and we apply it.

As it relates to Afghanistan, we must now turn our attention to that other legacy of 9/11, which is the impact of anti-terrorism legislation. Anti-terrorism legislation was designed to confront the threat posed by violent non-state actors. Certain states do engage in acts that would fit any coherent legal definition of terrorism, but we have generally found it useful to maintain the possibility of some intercourse with hostile or rights-abusing governments, even those that use terrorism. The extreme isolation associated with a terrorist listing was therefore designed for violent non-state actors as opposed to violent state actors. This design, though, has been stretched and complicated in certain respects in recent years.

First, certain organizations, such as the IRGC or the Wagner Group, may simultaneously function as an international terrorist organization and as part of, or a close affiliate of, a state. In our view, these organizations should still be listed as terrorist entities, but we should acknowledge that such designations move us closer in the direction of capturing state-affiliated entities, instead of just non-state actors, with anti-terrorism legislation. Designating the particular organs of terrorism, rather than the state itself, still provides space for some interaction with other state organs, and is therefore, in my view, quite doable, even without amending the Criminal Code as it exists.

More complicated is the case in which a terrorist organization comes to occupy and function as the de facto authority in the state, and this is now the case in Afghanistan. Removing such an organization from the terrorist list would clearly send the wrong message and weaken legitimate and important sanctions against that group. Withdrawing the designation from a terrorist group once it takes over government would appear to suggest that one way for a terrorist group to get off the terrorist list is to simply take over territory. Again, that would clearly send the wrong message.

However, the Criminal Code, as it currently exists, was not designed for the situation in which a terrorist group also functions as the de facto authority in a state, so it is reasonable to look for ways to make these provisions nimbler, if that nimbleness allows us to preserve the listing of terrorist groups as terrorist groups. Rather than removing the terrorist designation from a terrorist organization that is still a terrorist organization, we should be prepared to thoughtfully amend the Criminal Code to still allow some presence in, and engagement with the people of, a country when that country has been overrun by a terrorist organization without in any way legitimizing that organization.

This brings us to the particular provisions of Bill C-41. Bill C-41 would allow the Government of Canada to grant very limited exemptions to the Anti-Terrorism Act to allow the delivery of humanitarian assistance in areas controlled by terrorist organizations. The legislation does not name Afghanistan or the Taliban directly, but it is clearly designed to allow the government to grant narrow exemptions that would allow the delivery of emergency humanitarian relief into Afghanistan.

Afghanistan faces an ongoing humanitarian crisis, in large part as a result of Taliban misrule. Terrorists are generally not very good at running an economy, yet Canadian charities have not been able to deliver essential humanitarian aid because in the process of delivering that aid to the Afghan people, they may run afoul of the Anti-Terrorism Act and thus risk criminal prosecution.

In this particular case, we are not talking about the expenditure of public funds. We are talking simply about increasing the precision of Criminal Code provisions to give private Canadian charities the freedom to deliver private funds to the suffering people of Afghanistan. Bill C-41 does not prescribe the precise form of the exemptions the government will grant. It would simply give the government the power to grant these exemptions. It is reasonable for a government to have this power to deal with contingency situations, although the government will necessarily be held accountable for its judicious and effective use of this power.

On the basic objective of Bill C-41, the biggest problem I have is that it comes too late, not too late to be useful, but too late for many who have already been suffering under Taliban misrule for over a year and a half. Peer countries have been way ahead of us in addressing this problem, and Parliament has been pushing the government to address this issue for almost all of that time. In fact, immediately after the 2021 election, Conservatives proposed a motion to create a special committee on Afghanistan. When it reported to the House last spring, that committee recommended that changes be made to allow humanitarian assistance to get into Afghanistan. Following that, this past fall, the foreign affairs committee unanimously agreed to my motion calling for changes that would allow humanitarian assistance to get into Afghanistan, reiterating what was in the Afghan committee's report, and the committee adopted a second motion on the matter, proposed by the NDP earlier in the winter session, yet it has still taken until the end of March to actually begin debate on this bill.

When I met with international development stakeholders on the bill, they emphasized a significant concern about timelines, and in a few different senses. They highlighted the issue of timelines for the passage of the legislation in the hope the government will choose to prioritize it within its legislative agenda so the legislation can, indeed, move forward. The bill does need to be studied and debated thoroughly, but we are prepared to move it forward as quickly as possible, provided that sufficient time is set aside for study and debate.

While the principles are important, the bill is technically and legally complicated and does require meaningful examination, but stakeholders are not only concerned about the timeline for the passage of this bill. They are concerned about the timelines the bill would create for them in being able to get to work on the ground. Until this legislation passes, international organizations are potentially prohibited criminally from running humanitarian or development programs in Afghanistan if there is some risk of any portion of those resources eventually ending up in the hands of the Taliban.

This legislation would allow the Minister of Public Safety to grant certain narrow exemptions. From the perspective of these organizations, the legislation marks an improvement. However, the process associated with accessing these exemptions would be time-intensive and potentially highly bureaucratic, with no timeline set out. Again, it is not only about how long it takes to pass the bill, but also how long it would take organizations to be authorized to get to work.

The proposed process is that an exemption would be granted after a thorough review by the public safety minister, but only after the issue has been referred to that minister by another minister, either the immigration or foreign affairs minister, who would presumably have to conduct their own analysis. Exemptions would also have to be granted for each individual organization. If one development organization applies for and receives an exemption to operate a particular program, then another organization, running essentially an equivalent program in the same or different geographic area, would also have to apply for their own separate exemption.

There is also a great deal of uncertainty about how widely an exemption would apply. Would an organization that got an exemption to run a program in one province in one year have to apply for another exemption to extend the program, run the same program in a different province or run the program in another year? From my reading, there is a certain lack of clarity around the breadth of the exemptions that would be introduced.

Multiple organizations doing essentially the same work would each have to apply separately instead of simply being able to proceed with their work based on an exemption granted to someone else. This process seems more bureaucratic and costly than it needs to be, and it raises questions about whether the actual exemptions would be in place in a reasonable amount of time.

It also raises concerns about equity. Would the government subject certain organizations to more scrutiny than others, and would small and diaspora-led organizations be able to access these exemptions alongside larger organizations that have a longer history of working directly with the federal government?

Conservatives have repeatedly highlighted the need to ensure the inclusion of small and diaspora-led organizations in our thinking about international development. It is perhaps natural and inevitable that certain trusted partners are more likely to receive direct government funding, but it would be a grave problem if small and less-known organizations continued to face criminal prohibitions on delivering aid while larger, better-known players were given exemptions in identical situations.

It would seem reasonable for the government to establish certain general categories or situations of exemption, which would apply to all organizations, rather than only grant exemptions on an individual case-by-case basis. We will be digging more into this specific part of the issue at committee. Although we feel there is an urgency around the timeline of passing this legislation, there is also an urgency to ensure that processes are streamlined so that we can get assistance to the people who need it as soon as possible.

When I have been consulting with Canadians about this legislation, some have asked if aid should be flowing into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan at all. We know that the real cause of the suffering of the Afghan people is their Taliban oppressors. Poverty is, in this and so many other cases, the result of unjust and broken political institutions preventing people from moving forward in freedom and security. Why treat the symptom when the cause of the problem remains in place?

To that, I would say that what is true in Afghanistan is true in many places, to a lesser extent, and that is that poverty often has its roots in injustice. When people cannot borrow against their assets because they lack clear title, when a primary breadwinner faces arbitrary arrests and does not have secure access to an objective justice system, when transportation routes of goods are not secure, when corruption limits opportunities, when teenagers cannot go to school for fear of violence there or on the way, these are all too common instances in many parts of the developing world where violence causes or perpetuates poverty.

People everywhere have the ingenuity and the potential to lift themselves out of poverty if they are not held back by unjust systems that deprive them of the security, title and credit that they need to get ahead. The fight for justice and for the recognition of universal human dignity is central to development and poverty alleviation. We need to recognize this reality, but we also still need to attack poverty directly, especially in emergency situations like this.

It is not always possible to go directly to the roots of a problem. In the case of Afghanistan, by choosing to abandon Afghanistan's security and the building of just institutions, we have cut ourselves off from the ability to get at the roots of the problem, but with those bad decisions already baked in, we should still do all that we can to save lives and elevate the conditions of the Afghan people.

We should support such measures, even while recognizing that the Taliban cannot be permitted to continue to inflict its reign of terror on the Afghan people. The political problem will require an eventual solution. Delivering humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan is a necessary form of harm reduction, but we should not lose sight of the underlying injustices, political problems and of the need to look for solutions to them.

Based on this, what can we say about the future of Afghanistan? Nobody can say what surprises will rest around the corner, but the Afghan people deserve our continuing support and goodwill. Continuing contacts between Canadian organizations and Afghans in Afghanistan help all concerned to be informed and create opportunities to respond to emerging issues and dynamics.

We need to start by removing legal barriers that prevent humanitarian aid from getting in. Continuing access to food, education and other essentials will provide Afghans some space to move forward. The involvement of Canadian organizations in this effort will mean contact and two-way awareness that could turn into something else down the road.

We should retain some of the old optimism, because the intervening decades between 2001 and 2021 were not all for nothing. A new generation of Afghans has seen a different set of possibilities, and we will work together to ensure the re-emergence of those possibilities. We must still look for a way to be there for them.

At the end of the day, we know the choice that Afghans will make when they are able, because even if not with the right timelines and the right tactics, the main point was correct: “Ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is [always] the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police. The spread of freedom is the best security for the free.”

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Madam Speaker, we are seeing women's rights around the world under threat. I highlighted in my own speech the threat to women and girls, their rights in Afghanistan and how egregious they are. However, I find it a bit rich when the hon. member stands up on providing aid to countries that are in such dire need when he has been such a vocal opponent of women's reproductive rights, in particular filibustering a study at the foreign affairs committee on providing resources for organizations that provide sexual and reproductive health in countries around the world.

I do not really have a question. I just wanted to make a comment on the need to support women and girls in Canada and around the world.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, we are less than an hour into debate on this important government bill on Afghanistan, debate that is, in my view, a year and a half too late. It shows the partisan political approach of the Liberals to immediately try to throw this important debate about Afghanistan over the side and shift to something else.

Beyond that, I would challenge the member to actually be aware of what is happening in the foreign affairs committee. The study that allegedly I have been filibustering has actually finished now. We have been through four hearings at the foreign affairs committee on that study, and I would invite the member to listen to some of the very thoughtful and insightful witnesses. We heard some witnesses from western NGOs. We also heard witnesses from throughout the developing world who shared their particular perspective on these issues.

I would welcome the member to actually come to the committee, as I have never seen her there before, to review the blues, listen to the witnesses and maybe be aware of what is actually happening at committee before she tries to divert an important debate on Afghanistan with something else.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. If the government was as quick to introduce this bill as my colleague was in reading his speech, Bill C‑41 would have been passed a long time ago. I want to congratulate him because I have never heard someone say so many words so quickly.

There are a lot of things in this bill. Members know that I care a lot about this bill. With the support of my colleagues, I was one of the first to ask questions about this. We have been waiting over a year for this bill, and it is here.

We have a lot of questions about Bill C‑41. One quickly comes to mind. Authorization must be sought from a number of departments and agencies. That is not clear. What Bill C‑41 is saying is that the Government of Canada must give answers to these requests in a timely manner.

Does my colleague believe that this will be done in a timely manner—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, on much simpler matters such as passports and immigration applications, the government has massively expanded the delays we are seeing. When we already have families who are being privately sponsored for refugee status having to wait for three years and we hear the government saying it is going to approve exemptions in a reasonable amount of time, we do not have three years to wait, clearly, to get these exemptions moving forward.

By the sound of the question, my colleague from the Bloc has exactly the same concerns that I have, which are around timelines: how long it has taken us to get this far and how much longer it will take to not only pass the legislation, which is part of the process, but also get to a point where organizations are able to implement programs.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to comment on how disheartening it is to hear members of the Conservative Party not acknowledging the importance of women's reproductive rights when we are talking about humanitarian aid. It is very disheartening.

However, I will move on. Clearly, the reproductive rights of men are not at stake here, so I guess it is not important. I apologize, it is an important issue.

Today we are talking about how we need to ensure that the people of Afghanistan are receiving life-saving humanitarian aid. I want to hear from the member whether he feels that, in the current bill we are discussing, the processes would create challenges for smaller aid agencies that do not have the same level of resources as larger ones.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, again, we see the eagerness of Liberal and NDP politicians to shift the conversation to abortion.

I would just assure them again that there is a study happening at the foreign affairs committee. Four meetings have taken place. Neither of the members who have tried to divert this conversation from aid into Afghanistan to that issue have been at the foreign affairs committee. I participated actively in that study. My comments are on the record.

I would rather focus our discussion today on Bill C-41, which is the bill that is before the House. On this point, I agree with the member. This raises some questions about small organizations and whether small or medium-sized diaspora-led organizations would have an easy time accessing these exemptions. That is why I have raised this idea. What if we say that if one organization receives an exemption to operate under particular conditions in a particular place, then another organization that is doing more or less the same thing would be able to benefit from the same exemption?

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

Madam Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, I have been a bit torn on this bill due to my own past history and involvement in Afghanistan and due to my hatred of the Taliban.

I care deeply about the Afghan women and girls and Afghans in general. I do believe we need to support this bill, but we do need to get it right.

Tied to this, though, in the Special Committee on Afghanistan, recommendation 2 talked about the importance of interdepartmental coordination. This is a good example of a bill that is coming from public safety to change the Criminal Code, but it would tie in to foreign aid, international aid and policies within foreign policy.

I would like the member to comment on the complexities of this. It would be nice to know how the government is actually going to lead this effort to make sure that, however it gets put through, it is done right.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a great point from my colleague. I want to recognize him and thank him for his service.

It has been inspiring for me to see how veterans developed close connections with the Afghan people and have been so instrumental in trying to support the Afghan people through immigration measures as well as wanting to be part of the humanitarian response to the challenges they are facing.

The member is right that government can be so difficult to navigate and so complicated. That applies to individuals, to organizations and especially to smaller organizations that are trying to engage in these processes.

I would call on the government to do everything it can to minimize red tape, especially the red tape that organizations that are trying to engage the government have to experience. We want people to be able to get these exemptions done so that they can get programming out to those who need it.

It is not going to be good enough to pass this legislation and then have a parade. We need to actually get all the way through the process so that aid could be delivered to people on the ground by as many organizations as possible.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was at the meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development where we debated women's sexual and reproductive health and where we heard from women. NGOs came to ask for more help for Afghan women who have been raped. These are terrible situations. Representatives from the Afghan community came to my constituency office in Granby to complain about how slow the government was moving.

Beyond that, this is an unfortunate example of what happens when we allow religious values to come before science and dominate a government. This is an example of the rise of fundamentalism, which is why women's rights are being set back and violated. Women need this bill now. The Bloc Québécois will collaborate to speed up the process. As far as foreign aid is concerned, we heard from NGOs that were worried about funding. The federal government claims to have a feminist foreign policy. It should provide the funding to back up that claim.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, there were a lot of different things in there.

The member sort of had an implied criticism that there is something going on about religious values in general. I want to identify the fact that many of the leading development organizations in Canada that are working hard to get assistance to the most vulnerable people around the world are coming from some kind of a faith-informed humanitarian motivation. These are Christian organizations like World Vision or Foodgrains Bank and Muslim organizations like Islamic Relief. For many people, though certainly not for all, a commitment to a sense of the image of God being in all of us is what leads to a passion for development assistance.

I want to recognize the role of people who come from a broad range of philosophical backgrounds who are involved in international development and the important work they are doing.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have been waiting for this day for more than a year. We are finally debating a bill that should have been introduced a long time ago. Last year, I had the honour of sitting on the Special Committee on Afghanistan with my colleagues from different parties, some of whom are with me today. I was one of the vice-chairs.

It was at the meeting on February 7, 2022, already more than a year ago, that I had the honour of asking the witnesses one of my first questions. This is the first time I have done this, but I am going to quote myself, because I think it is important. This is what I said: “They said that the Criminal Code might need to be amended so that NGOs on the ground could operate in Afghanistan without fear of being accused of funding terrorism. In my opinion, this is a very important subject that we need to address. What are your thoughts on this...?”

I said that on February 7, 2022. Since then, I have asked that question every chance I get. I even introduced a unanimous consent motion in the House on February 22, 2022, to allow non-governmental organizations to do their work on the ground. That was over a year ago. The motion was defeated by the Liberals, and now we find ourselves debating this bill in March.

I put that question to the organizations themselves and to the various ministers who appeared before the committee. Surprisingly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship all replied that they agreed with me. That was in meetings of the Special Committee on Afghanistan.

One year later, we can finally debate a topic that everyone agreed on over a year ago. Democracy is great, but sometimes it takes a while.

It will come as no surprise, then, that I was quite happy to hear that such a bill was finally being introduced and to hear the government announce that it was going to amend Canada's Criminal Code to allow humanitarian aid to flow again and to allow NGOs to do their work without fear of prosecution. I hope that is what happens.

This bill is further proof that the opposition can spur action in Quebec, Canada and around the world. After applying pressure to the government together with my friends from the Conservative Party and the NDP, I am delighted with this huge victory. The Bloc Québécois is always pleased to help. I believe that all my colleagues from the other parties are also pleased to help. That is the reason we ran for office in the first place.

Now, we must expedite the process because it has already taken too long. The Bloc Québécois can be counted on to fast-track this bill because the people of Afghanistan need help now. I say “now”, but they have needed our help since last winter when we were debating this issue. This is a useful bill that will help us make progress in the area of humanitarian aid.

The caveat is that we need to work quickly, but not too quickly. We have three hours to debate this bill, which will then be sent to committee. There are things we can discuss and on which we can agree in order to improve the bill. I will first touch on the more technical aspects. The government tabled Bill C‑41, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts, on March 9, 2023.

Currently the bill is at second reading. As it is currently written, the Criminal Code does not include any exemptions to facilitate the delivery of these essential activities in regions dealing with terrorist groups. As I mentioned earlier, this bill amends one of the Criminal Code's anti-terrorist financing offences to facilitate the delivery of much-needed international assistance, immigration activities, and other assistance in geographic areas controlled by terrorist groups. In other words, these amendments would create a new authorization scheme that would allow those that provide humanitarian or other critical assistance, to apply for an authorization that would shield them from the risk of criminal liability if the terms and conditions of the authorization are respected.

We have to understand that the Taliban, as the current de facto authority in Afghanistan, is likely to receive revenue from any payments needed to support humanitarian aid.

Under the Criminal Code, any Canadian or person in Canada making or authorizing such payments would risk contravening the Criminal Code's counter-terrorist financing provision. That is what we have now.

Despite the uncertainty, most organizations have continued to respond to crises around the world, but problems have grown exponentially since the Taliban, a listed terrorist entity, took control of Afghanistan in August 2021. In that regard, the scale of the humanitarian and economic crisis that the Afghan people are now facing cannot be overstated.

On paper, Bill C-41 rectifies this inability to make exceptions for organizations that are trying to deliver humanitarian aid on the ground. The bill is the proposed solution, and some aid groups support it.

However, what is wrong with this approach is that there are already many legal provisions that the government could strengthen rather than imposing a whole new set of legal hoops for humanitarian organizations to jump through. There is also the fact that humanitarian aid workers have said that the current amendments create more red tape for them, as my colleague said earlier.

For the sake of clarity, here is what is in this bill. Under this regime, the following people would have the power to grant an authorization to NGOs: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, the Minister of Public Safety, and delegates with the power to grant authorizations. That is a lot of people.

These authorizations will shield applicants from criminal liability in the course of certain activities, including the delivery of humanitarian aid, when they would otherwise be at risk of violating the Criminal Code. It is really about time.

When deciding whether or not to grant an authorization, the Minister of Public Safety will examine applications referred by the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and will take into account their assessment of the application.

In other words, the goal is to determine whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in terms of the risk of financing terrorism. This is done through a system of information sharing between departments to conduct the security review that must be done prior to granting authorization. However, all this remains to be seen, because it does not mean that the authorization will be granted.

What happens if the authorization is not granted? Let us look at that together. Under this authorization regime, in the event of a negative response from the Government of Canada, the bill provides for the possibility of judicial review if authorization is not granted.

There is legal precedent in Canada that supports the assertion that because of the life-saving purpose of humanitarian aid, it cannot be considered criminal to provide such aid, even if a terrorist group may in some way benefit from it.

This does not mean that humanitarian organizations are shielded from anti-terrorism legislation. It means that they should not be presumed to be violating the Criminal Code simply because they operate in places like Afghanistan.

The problem is that Bill C-41 turns that presumption on its head. It uses an approach based on mistrust, one that requires humanitarian organizations to prove their abilities before they are allowed to respond to emergencies, and no one knows how long that process will take. One thing we do know, however, is that approval would involve at least two departments and up to nine security or regulatory agencies.

I cannot speak for my colleagues, but I myself have had numerous opportunities during my time in the House to see how slowly the Canadian government bureaucracy moves. Bill C‑41 provides for applications for authorization to be processed by the Government of Canada within a reasonable time. That does not necessarily instill much confidence.

Despite the positive advances in this bill, what worries me is the number of interventions required between departments and the impact that such a bill could have on humanitarian organizations. It is no secret that, when it comes to processing times, I get the impression that the federal government does not spend much time checking the clock.

The situation for the NGOs and above all the Afghan people, the men, women and children who are suffering, is deteriorating before our eyes. Time is running out.

When the time came to create this committee, a Conservative motion proposed that the Special Committee on Afghanistan be created. It was not going to be adopted because there was no consensus in the House. If the Conservative motion had been presented as worded, it would have been defeated.

The Bloc Québécois came up with a possible amendment to the proposal to create the Special Committee on Afghanistan, adding a requirement that the committee focus not only on the fall of Kabul, the federal government's failure to support the Afghan people and what happened before the Taliban took power, but also on what we could do now and in the near future.

We entered into a dialogue with our Conservative friends about this amendment and we managed to get everyone in the House to support it. Then the opposition parties voted for the motion to create the Special Committee on Afghanistan. It is important to highlight this, because the committee's mission is to find out what is being done now and how we are helping people who are experiencing suffering that we in the House will never experience. Things are horrible there. Women and parents are being forced to sell one of their daughters in order to feed their other children. These are the kinds of horrors we heard about in meetings of the Special Committee on Afghanistan. That is why we wanted to create it, to come up with recommendations and to help the Afghan people as quickly as possible.

We have known about this problem for over a year, but today the government comes along and tells me that it was complicated to draft. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Immigration, everyone in the Liberal Party agreed that there is a problem and that we need to do something about it, but they said it takes time. The Minister of International Development also got involved, saying that we need to do it, but that it will take time, so we need to give them time. We are being told it is normal for this to take so much time.

There is a question I ask myself when I get up in the morning. As I often mention, I have a Post-it note on my bedside table that says, “Who do you work for?” When I open my eyes, that is the first thing I see. I work for Quebeckers and the people of Lac-Saint-Jean, but I also work for everyone who needs help around the world. It is part of my files, but I am also fundamentally human and I am a representative of the people. We have a duty and a responsibility toward people who are suffering.

Now the government is telling me that it was too complicated and that it is understandable that it took so much time. I will give an example. When the pandemic hit the entire country, I think the government acted fairly quickly to implement special aid programs. It only took the government two weeks to create the Canada emergency response benefit and subsidies for businesses when people were losing their jobs. Now, however, the government says it is understandable for this to take a year and a half, even though children are dying in Afghanistan, women are selling their children and Canada is unable to deliver humanitarian aid because of the Criminal Code. Come on.

I am rather appalled by that. I understand that I have plenty of Liberal colleagues who are acting in good faith, who want to help and who agree with us on this subject, but I think there is a problem somewhere in the machine. It is not right for the government to be able to create aid programs really quickly when people are losing their jobs in Canada but not when children are dying in Afghanistan. I think that is unfathomable and disgraceful.

I am going to end with that because I do not want to get too wound up, and this is still good news, after all. However, now that we have wasted so much time, we need to get Bill C‑41 in place. How likely is that that the bill is well written and we can all agree on the amendments coming from the humanitarian NGO community, all together and not in committee?

What I am asking is that the parties come to agreement through informal conversations before sitting in committee and that everyone agrees quickly. I am hoping that there will be no debate in committee and that the amendments that are agreed upon are voted on quickly. Let us not waste any more time; we have wasted far too much over the last year.

I will say it again. The first question I asked with respect to this issue was on February 7, 2022, in the Special Committee on Afghanistan. The motion received unanimous consent, so I tabled it on February 22, 2022. What day is it now? It is March and April is coming. There was snow in the Parc des Laurentides, but it is sunny here. It is spring. It should not have taken this long.

Let us make sure that from now on it moves as quickly as it can and that this bill is as well crafted as possible to allow our NGOs to do the work on the ground, to help women, men, children and the Afghan people through one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet.