Mr. Speaker, the mandate we accepted in February after a debate in the House of Commons was until the end of this month.
We respected the mandate. The UN now says it does not need the Canadian troops because it wants to reduce the number. We are happy because if we bring them back to Canada they will be better off.
Canada is always available when people are in very difficult circumstances, when there is misery and when people have been killed to protect families, children and so on. We have always been there. We will do it again and there will be a debate in the House of Commons.
The peacekeeping mission was created by the Canadian government. The peacekeepers who are so well known in the world were created by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, my predecessor as leader of the Liberal Party. It was done at the time of the war of Great Britain and France against Egypt. He had the guts for the good of the peace of the world to say to the British and the French that war had to stop.
It is in the tradition of Lester B. Pearson that we are making our decision in relation to the UN.