Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let me begin by saying that we, the government, have never denied that there were concerns regarding the circumstances of prisons and prisoners in Afghanistan. Those were general concerns that we shared with other countries, based on, of course, information that we received from a number of sources, including some of those that Mr. Dosanjh has listed—that is, international bodies, other countries, certainly our men and women in the field, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, and our military personnel. So from our initial transfer arrangement, we went about receiving that information, making decisions about how we would improve upon the failings that were there, left and inherited by our government.
We had a transfer arrangement that was inadequate, clearly, because it didn't allow for sufficient access—that is, Canadian officials being able to go into prisons to follow up. So as Minister of National Defence.... As other ministers have previously stated, we acted. We acted upon the advice and the information that was being received from a number of sources, including our own, and we were also, as has been noted, reporting. The Department of Foreign Affairs reports regularly with annual human rights reports. So we were aware, painfully aware, of the fact that conditions in Afghan detention facilities needed to be improved, generally, broadly.
On this subject matter of specific allegations—and I know my honourable friend wants to blur this issue and try to suggest somehow that I've denied that there were concerns over the general conditions within prisons—when the specific allegations arose concerning detainees for whom we were responsible, we acted. There were decisions made by commanders in the field to stop transfers.