It is rather interesting to see that in the realm of human rights and the application of international law that is supportive, of course, of human rights, internationally this country is starting to get a whole different visage than what we have seen in the past.
I sit on the human rights committee in the Senate. We go to Geneva, where we used to have 30 or 40 NGOs quite prepared to meet with us and discuss how Canada is moving on a whole series of dossiers there. The last time we went, and I was attending, we barely had five of them. They find no value in us, because they feel we're sort of the lackeys of the Americans, who don't even want to join the group of 47.
In a variety of applications of human rights, which is a fundamental law of this nation, the law says it's human rights for all humans—not for Canadians, not for somebody else, but all humans. So if you apply it for all humans, then you have to be held accountable for all humans if you get involved or some of your people get involved.
In this case, we have people whose politics maybe we don't like, or we don't absolutely like the fact that they're out there maybe fighting our troops and they have family. That is irrelevant. That is part of the process of demobilization, of rehabilitation and reintegration into society, that we will face that case with that individual when he comes. There are a whole bunch of people prepared to do that.
But in the backdrop of it all, we are being very hypocritical. It has to be one of the best examples of one of the innovative dimensions that we're trying to move forward with Graça Machel and the international community on eradicating the use of child soldiers, and we actually won't even sort out the ones who come from our country.
If you think this is the last one, then we're really smoking dope, because I do believe in this era we're going to face scenarios in the future, and we have to be prepared in this multi-ethnic country to handle that.
So, no, we are hypocrites. And I'll tell you, I'm sure that one of the happiest people on earth right now would be President Bush if he got a phone call to say, “I'm helping you clear out that damned Guantanamo Bay by pulling out Khadr.”