Mr. Speaker, I am going to split my time with the member for Edmonton Manning.
I actually want to start my speech by answering the questions that NDP and Bloc members asked of the previous Liberal speaker: Why is it so important to debate this motion today? I have an article here from today's international news, titled “Female-Led Afghan Refugee Families Reluctant To Return To Afghanistan Amid Fresh UN Warning”. Another article from last week was titled “How the Taliban Enables Violence Against Women”.
As I mentioned in a previous intervention, there are a few key things coming up. It has been over a year since the all-party group formed to help former Afghan women MPs to get out of Afghanistan. I will get into that in a minute. There are huge concerns that I have been hearing from charities and NGOs that are continuing to try to help those Afghans fleeing the Taliban regime, in particular those who helped us. Finally, I want to get into the depth of just how terrible and oppressive the apartheid is against women and girls that is ongoing currently in Afghanistan. I think that makes it all relevant and, as was pointed out earlier, we are not slowing down government legislation or anything today, because it is time allocated. We will be voting on it soon enough.
Let us talk about the former Afghan women MPs. A group of us came together across all parties. There were a couple of Liberal MPs, myself from the Conservatives, somebody from the Bloc, the Greens and the NDP, all trying to work to get former Afghan women MPs safely out of Afghanistan. We started that group in October of last year, over a year ago. We did it behind the scenes. We did not go public. We really wanted to work with the government and the NGOs to get the help needed for these incredible women, who made a difference in Afghanistan before the Taliban took control again.
Unfortunately, what happened in January was the murder of Mursal Nabizada, which caused unbelievable grief for those of us tied to this behind the scenes. It was just terrible, because in two weeks, we can get somebody out of Afghanistan. It is not difficult to get somebody out of there if we have the political will. I am not going to elaborate in detail other than the bad news that we still do not have the vast majority of them out. I believe one of them has gotten to Canada, which is not even close. The good news is that there has been progress. The other part is that the government has been working with the group and with the NGOs, so we have been getting updates.
However, my biggest fear is that, if we lose another one of these former Afghan women MPs before they get safely to Canada, I am going to go from being one of the most non-partisan MPs in this chamber to quickly becoming one of the most partisan. It is unacceptable; this could have been solved in a matter of weeks, and it has been over a year now.
The other concern that I want to talk about is around the current support and the current programs that the government has for Afghans, in particular, the Canadian-Afghan special immigration program, which is apparently now closed. Right from day one, I raised concerns around this program that it was being focused on a quota rather than those most in need. I think 40,000 is the number that the government chose. Another big concern is that a lot of Afghans successfully fled Afghanistan for neighbouring countries, but they did not necessarily have that connection to Canada. However, there are tons of former Canadian contractors, Canadian cultural advisers and Canadian interpreters of Afghan background who were working for us. Many of them are still stuck there to this day.
I am not going to go into long details. I know other members asked questions during this debate about the failure of the Liberal government when Kabul, Afghanistan, fell. They talked about how we could have done a heck of a lot more to get Afghans to safety at that time. I am on the record talking at length about that, so I am not going to go into detail.
I do want to focus on getting some clarity. This is the question that I asked the parliamentary secretary and one of the other Liberal members. I am asking for help. All I am asking the Liberal government to do is come out publicly with some clarity around the program and tell us if all the Afghans' applications that are currently in the SIM program are going to get processed so they eventually get to Canada.
I am hearing lots of rumours from NGOs and from groups working behind the scenes in collaboration with the government to get these Afghans to safety that there are still thousands, and I am not talking one thousand but thousands, plural, of Afghan applicants who have not even received an invitation to apply through the program, despite having applied over two years ago. I am trying to get to the point here that we need greater clarity on this. There are a lot of Afghans and Canadian Afghans with family members who are stuck in this process, and we have concerns.
In the next part of my speech, I am going to paraphrase pretty extensively from a report that has been out in the media in the last week, so all Canadians can understand how the Taliban is enabling violence against women.
We just finished, this past week, the 16 days of activism to end gender-based violence. However, in the 28 months since the Taliban basically took control, it completely dismantled Afghan women and girls' rights. It has imposed draconian restrictions regarding their education, employment and freedom of movement, and any perceived violation of these oppressive policies is often met with harassment, intimidation, and verbal and physical abuse, all orchestrated by the Taliban's ministry of vice and virtue. When women are detained by the authorities, they have been subject to cruel treatment, including torture.
The Taliban's anti-women policies, combined with its patriarchal system, have made Afghanistan the lowest-ranked country in the 2023 women, peace and security index. They have basically rolled back over two decades' worth of gains that I and others helped try to establish in Afghanistan. The women there had achieved much in politics, governance, education, health and even the private sector.
However, within months of the Taliban taking over, it suspended the Afghan Constitution, which obligated the government to protect and promote human rights. It replaced the Ministry of Women's Affairs with the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. It ordered professional and working women to stay home until further notice. It prevented women from travelling any long distances on road trips without a male supervisor, and it imposed a strict dress code on women.
As I have mentioned before in this chamber, I still have hope that those Afghans who did get a glimpse of what the future could hold will eventually be back to lead Afghanistan and be a beacon of hope, change and leadership. However, that is going to be achieved only if western democracies and countries like Canada continue to provide the necessary support and allow them to get out of there in the first place.
I actually believe this debate is very timely and important today. The Liberal government must continue to provide support and provide clarity to all those Afghans still stuck in Afghanistan who helped us or are fleeing persecution, and provide clarity to the many charities and NGOs working to get these Afghans to safety. This is especially important when it comes to the former Afghan women MPs and their families. I also want to make it crystal clear that the Taliban are terrorists. They must remain listed as such. They are some of the most oppressive, terrible people in the world, and I have zero sympathy.
Afghanistan will someday in the future return to being a democracy that will respect human rights, but only if we continue to help those who will eventually return and lead this necessary change.