(OTTAWA) Senators are concerned that a long-delayed Liberal bill that aims to unlock Canadian aid to Afghanistan could bog down development groups with red tape and block aid access due to harmful bureaucracy.
“We have been creative within the limits of the law,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told the Senate Human Rights Committee Monday night.
He was speaking hours after the House of Commons passed Bill C-41, which comes more than a year after many of Canada’s allies granted exemptions to aid workers in their anti-terrorism laws.
The Criminal Code currently prohibits Canadian aid workers from paying taxes on labor or goods in Afghanistan because they could be prosecuted for financially supporting the ruling Taliban, which Ottawa designates as a terrorist group.
Bill C-41 would allow development workers, such as those who build schools, to apply for exemptions to perform their work. Following amendments from the Conservatives and New Democrats, it also provides a blanket exemption for workers.
“How to define impartiality? »
However, senators have raised concerns with Minister Mendicino about how the bill will actually be implemented, including how bureaucrats will assess waiver requests.
Senator Mobina Jaffer said Afghan Canadians were particularly concerned about being subjected to greater scrutiny when seeking exemption from terrorism laws.
“How to define impartiality? Because it’s not the experience of the community as to how different departments have defined non-partisanship,” the independent senator from British Columbia told Mr. Mendicino.
“You know it’s subjective, and the community is nervous,” she added.
Mr. Mendicino insisted that the officials are impartial and noted that the courts can reconsider any denied claim.
Conservative Ontario Senator Salma Ataullahjan urged the government to act quickly, noting that other countries passed exemptions in the months following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021.
Mme Ataullahjan was born in Pakistan and, like many Afghans, she is of Pashtun descent. She recalls that UNICEF reported in April that approximately 167 children die every day in Afghanistan from preventable illnesses.
“It’s about my people, so of course it affects me,” she said.
Mme Ataullahjan also asked Mr. Mendicino how the legislation would check whether the benefits of licensing an activity outweigh the risks of terrorist financing.
The minister said he was committed to a non-discriminatory process, but said he was not quite there yet.
“Developing objective principles will be an urgent exercise in the implementation of the bill,” Mendicino said.
Concerns about timelines
Some senators urged the minister to provide an approximate timeline for how long it would take to process applications after aid groups requested a service standard from the government, while acknowledging that those timelines could vary depending on the scale of the work.
“We will do everything in our power to put in place an effective process,” assured Mr. Mendicino.
The senators noted, however, that the two departments that process applications — Global Affairs Canada and Immigration, and Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) — have been hit with longer wait times than other departments.
“It’s very difficult, within a hypothesis, to say how long this will take,” Selena Beattie, IRCC’s policy director, told senators, but added that the administration would prioritize urgent requests.
“We would be ready to do that assessment fairly quickly. We are preparing and making great progress,” she said.
The House passed Bill C-41 on Monday afternoon with all-party support except the New Democratic Party (NDP), which believes it violates the independence of aid workers if they must seek government permission to perform their work abroad.
“The principle of third-party authorization, which requires Canadian aid agencies to seek permission from the Government of Canada to carry out their important work in fragile contexts abroad, is unprecedented and unacceptable,” wrote Heather McPherson, NDP Foreign Affairs Critic, in a statement.
During Monday’s hearings, Adeena Niazi, executive director of the Afghan Women’s Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Services, urged Ottawa to act quickly.
She said her organization had to turn down donations from Canadians meant to help a country where children are ravaged by malnutrition, disease and forced labour.
“It was extremely difficult to see the Afghan people being punished by these laws,” she testified.
Senators will deliberate whether to amend the bill, although aid groups on Monday urged that they pass it in its current form rather than risk having it shelved when work on the parliament will be adjourned for the summer.