Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will respond to these outrageous allegations that I, or any minister of the government, would knowingly participate or collude in sending anyone off to torture. That is an outrageous, false, inflammatory, and insulting allegation from a fellow minister, from somebody who has served in government and should know better, someone who's also, I might add, a member of the bar, a fellow lawyer, who knows that you act on evidence that's presented to you.
Let me just respond to some of these outrageous allegations.
Referencing the fact that I have personally withheld documents, interfered, or intimidated witnesses is, again, completely without basis, completely without proof. That has been the exercise here, just to throw as much dirt in the direction of the government as possible.
The Military Police Complaints Commission is an arm's-length organization. The chair of that commission made the decision to suspend its hearings. It went to the Federal Court to challenge the fact that the government had been cooperating with it within its mandate. The mandate of that Military Police Complaints Commission was upheld and affirmed by the Federal Court. Again I note, it is an arm's-length body.
With respect to documents, I addressed that earlier. Those documents are vetted by lawyers within government, arm's length from political interference. They're vetted for the purposes specifically of ensuring that we don't disclose information that would endanger the lives of soldiers, that would interfere with operations, that would endanger information we had received from other governments or agencies that do so specifically on the understanding that it will be kept close and not shared.
Those are just a number of the inconsistencies and false allegations presented by the member.