Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let me say at the outset that I'm glad we waited for this.
I've done a lot of human rights work in Africa over the last couple of decades, and in the last decade in Darfur especially. I find it troubling--and I thank you for driving home the fact, Professor--that while we spend all these hours, and often we're here.... I'm the newest member of Parliament in this group. We talk about policy and ideas and everything else, but in the end it is about these very people, and in the hours we have been doing this I can't envision what's been going on in the lives of these people who have been detained, perhaps improperly, or perhaps even tortured. I thank you for driving that home to us.
I have a question about the troops. I come from London, Ontario, and this last weekend all the Royal Canadian Legions from Ontario gathered for their biannual conference in London. I was asked to speak at it. The deputy minister for Veterans Affairs was also there. In meeting with many of the troops afterwards who have come back from Afghanistan, I found there was a general disillusionment among these troops in that they were not aware, although they have been made aware since they came home, of the U.S. report of human rights, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, and the U.K. human rights reports that actually pointed to torture, sometimes killings, and other things.
We're talking about information here, and that's what we're about. It's important that we all support our troops, and all of us here want to do that.
But Mr. Esau, from your travels or discussions, what knowledge might our own troops have in that area of the world about these very things that we're discussing so much here?