Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  My comment is that in this era of complex and ambiguous conflict scenarios and threats, it is absolutely essential that we use all legal means possible to prevent us from being used or abused in the international community by those who are not at all operating under the rules. In so doing, it is essential, in the case of Canadians who are being held internationally, that we do respond by the proper rules.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  My position is that the minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, and with civil liberties in order to say you're doing it to protect yourself--and you are going against the fundamentals of those rights and conventions--you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In this case, yes, that's what we're working with.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I notice you just threw in the last one there to give yourself a whole context. First of all, it is the same as those adults who use child soldiers in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, Darfur, and Sri Lanka. In so doing, it is the child soldier who is being used, and we are using illegal means to try to try them.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If you want it in black and white, then I'm only too prepared to give it to you: absolutely. You're either with the law or you're not with the law. If you wish to fiddle with the law and say, well, we're going to go a bit this way and we're going to go a bit this way, then fine.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In 2005 I was doing just like the opposition is: on one side ignoring it and on the other side not being aware of it.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I was not aware of it. I said that in my testimony.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I was not aware of it.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I was in the United States, at Harvard at the time.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, I was...well, to be quite honest, you couldn't even get a Globe and Mail at Harvard, so I'm not sure. I don't remember seeing the Khadr case when I was there, no.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I started to pick up the dossier, as I've said, about a year to a year and a half ago.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the former government's position in regard to Khadr...they didn't want to touch it. And I think the opposition certainly didn't. The consistency is in the opposition, even though the circumstances have changed and Khadr has now been tried--correction; he has been brought in front of an illegal court, and we are aware of the charges, although he had been held illegally.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Right. There is a similarity in our philosophy regarding bringing in the protocol, because “child soldiers” is really still a fairly new phenomenon, since the late eighties in Mozambique, and so on. We have a weapon here that we're actually trying to neutralize on the battlefield called a child soldier.