Thank you very much for the question, Ms. Wagantall. It's wonderful to see you again too. Thank you very much for the invitation.
In 1994, Rwanda came up. Section 32 of the National Defence Act requires members of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons “within 10 days” for a period of 10 days to discuss openly, transparently and democratically the “active service” mission that Canada is planning to take on. From an accountability perspective, members of Parliament.... I go way back to 1991, when Canada went to the Gulf War. Members of Parliament came to visit us in the Gulf War. They sat and discussed the Gulf War for 10 days to determine whether Canada should or should not participate, but then they also asked questions to ensure a lot of necessities: who's coming, how many units are going to be there, when are they arriving, what's the safety, what's the security and what's the UN chapter and so forth.
Today, the Government of Canada no longer observes section 32, because they do not think it's relevant. I'm not sure how federal law works, but I understand that section 32 is a law, and it does require—it's almost obligatory—that you go and discuss our rights and freedoms under the charter and how they're going to be affected by the active service that Canada is placing us on.
Today, the Liberal government likes to make all of its decisions in secret. The Governor in Council, however, provides the active service legislation, and it's exactly at that point when you are all supposed to sit in the House of Commons for 10 days and discuss it.
Now we've just basically put Europe back on the table, in Latvia, Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic Sea, and I don't think any of you sat for active service legislation to determine whether that's the best thing for Canada or whether that's the best thing for our troops and so forth.
Section 32 is found in BP-303. It talks extensively about it, and I encourage all of you to read it. You're going to find out some very interesting information about your obligations.