Mr. Dosanjh, to quote yourself with respect to the issue of transfer arrangements, going back to a debate in the House on April 10, 2006, you spoke regarding the 2005 transfer arrangement, which your government put in place. There are in fact 12 members of your government currently who were part of that government when the transfer arrangement in 2005 was first put in place. Your government, of course, was in office for four years when the Afghan mission began.
This is what you had to say about that 2005 transfer arrangement:
I have had an opportunity to look at the agreement. I agree that it is an important agreement and it is one that is quite good in many respects.
You went on to talk about the supervision of the Red Cross, and Red Crescent, society as an independent party, about the fact that it's very important because they can follow the prisoners and ensure that they're treated well and appropriately in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
So I would invite you to do the same; I have in fact looked at many of the documents various times. I've looked at the transfer agreements, both the previous one and the one that our government put in place in May 2007 as a result of inadequacies that were discovered, concerns over monitoring in particular, which you spoke to in the House of Commons.
As well, I would remind you that senior diplomats have also testified, people such as David Mulroney, and members of the military who would have had first-hand knowledge of the conditions then and the ongoing evolution of conditions.
You're right to suggest that there were circumstances in Afghanistan that we were concerned about, both inside and outside prisons, and we've made substantial investments to try to improve the human rights conditions in both environments.
Obviously now we have a more robust agreement that allows for greater access, regular and unannounced visits to prisons. In fact, I think you'll find that there have been over 210 visits, one as recently as 10 days ago, that allowed for Canadian officials from the public safety department or the Department of Foreign Affairs to be inside Afghan detention facilities—an eyes-on, first-hand ability to monitor Canadian-transferred Taliban prisoners. In fact, it's primarily our focus.
Yes, we have received general concerns expressed in reports and through various channels about conditions, but our primary responsibility, I remind you, sir, is prisoners who were captured by Canadian Forces--many in the aftermath of a battle, or tested for explosive residue on their clothing or hands--and then turned over to Afghan officials.