Mr. Speaker, thank you. I hope that you will give me enough time to ask my question.
I listened with great interest to the hon. member's comments concerning Canada's participation in UN peacekeeping missions. Even though I do not have his experience, I share a lot of his concerns regarding the safety of Canadian peacekeepers.
Canadian troops are, of course, going through a difficult time. But their well-known professionalism enables them to overcome these difficulties and accomplish their mission in a very satisfactory fashion. Finally, the very positive results of their humanitarian aid efforts and of their strategic operations to contain the conflict within the current borders have been pointed out on several occasions today.
I would like to remind you that 80 per cent of the members of the 12th Armoured Regiment of Canada and the Mechanized Batallion of the Royal 22e Régiment from Valcartier come from Quebec, including many young people named Bergeron, Bigras, Simard, Gagnon, Dugas and so on from the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. We can all be proud of the excellent job done by our soldiers. In this regard, I would ask the hon. member who spoke before me if he thinks that the withdrawal of troops by Canada, especially if it were done unilaterally, would bring our allies to question the firmness and durability of our commitments?