Madam Speaker, I must say I am truly delighted to see the hon. member's conversion on the road to Damascus because as he has kindly recalled my history on the opposition benches as an activist for women's rights, I too recall his original incarnation in this House as a member of a government, indeed as a member of a government that had full access to the Abella report which was tabled in this House in 1984 when the hon. member was part and parcel of that government.
I am sure that his desire for quick action has come since his, shall we say, change in circumstance. I will, however, say that I am a little disappointed at the hon. member's wish to debunk a committee that has not yet been struck. Certainly there is a committee for national defence, a standing committee of this House, and it has a particular mandate.
The joint committee that is being talked about in this resolution has a specific mandate that was promised, I might add, in the red book. We on this side of the House will always keep our promises. That is a promise we made. It is a promise we are going to keep.
What I want to see done and what I know will be done by this committee is that the systemic changes necessary to prevent further discrimination within the armed forces will be dealt with by this joint committee as part and parcel of its long-term mandate. To say that this work can be left to the committee on national defence is to be unrealistic. I know the hon. member would never be so with regard to the duties of the standing committee here in this House.
For example, the standing committee on defence will have to deal with estimates and with various and sundry other matters as they come up in the daily business relating to the minister of defence and his responsibilities.
This joint committee is to do a very special job within a very special period of time. As I said before, it is one that is absolutely necessary to the health and future of the Department of National Defence.
With regard to the need for action, I want to make perfectly clear that in my remarks I was certainly not calling for any more studies, no more studies. We know what the problems are. We know where they are. We know how they exist and we also know how to fix them.
What remains to be done now is for this committee to take as its mandate, which I am quite sure it will, this problem and work it in with the review and its recommendations for changes within the armed forces that the Department of National Defence will carry forward into the next century.