Madam Chairman, first I would like to stand firmly in my place again and suggest that I am a true blue Liberal. That means I am slightly to the right economically and very much to the left in social policy. I am very comfortable on this side of the House unless and until a war is declared without UN sanctions, and then I may be sitting in one of those independent seats over there.
As far as the Minister of Foreign Affairs is concerned, he is in my opinion someone I respect most deeply. He is a wonderful person and he sincerely put that recommendation forward to that committee and allowed its members the freedom to vote unanimously to make that recommendation.
Something very strange happens when one enters cabinet. Some people say “they suck the brain out of your left ear”, but I do not believe that. What happens is we have to work as part of a different team and are under different restrictions. However, there is nobody in the House I would rather have in that position than the member for Toronto Centre—Rosedale because he is an incredibly fine man. He understands the situation very well and he is going to work toward doing the right thing.
I would also like to thank the Canadian Alliance because it has put forward one of my favourite pet peeves which is empowering committees. The little insurrection before Christmas, which I assisted on, where we made committee chairs elected by the group on secret ballot, was just a step in the direction of trying to empower these committees. They are not just there to debate and then go off and make resolutions that everybody ignores. More and more, we must empower those committees to actually make a recommendation that will be listened to. I thank the member for her compliments.