Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his presentation. I am left in some doubt as to what he was proposing in particular.
First I want to clarify the record. The hon. member said they do not have enough information in the third party. If my understanding is correct-and I am not sure if the hon. member was there-there was a briefing on Thursday. I do not know how long it went on, but I understood from at least two members of the third party that they were happy with the briefing.
At the briefing it was presented what Canada's role might be. They were given 15 options of some of the things we may be able to do, what the command and control arrangements were. I would have thought there was enough information there to provide the basis, with further learning and research, to come to the House in a debate with at least four days' warning to provide some useful input.
I am not really sure where third party members are coming from. I am very serious about this. For the last week they have been complaining that morale is not good enough to participate. I can only assume they received irate telephone calls from members of
the Canadians forces, because that does not now seem to be part of their presentation. I am not really sure where they are on that issue.
On the issue that they are not being included, we have had countless debates in the House, and he knows that no decision has yet been made on the troops that will be committed. I do not know if he expects that the third party and the opposition can go over to Brussels and meet. In our system of democratic government it is the ministers of the crown, the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who go and meet with their counterparts in the NATO countries and the partnership for peace countries. There is no built-in system, other than corresponding with the minister. Have they ever heard of letters? Have they ever heard of meetings in the minister's office?
We have today this special presentation, a debate. As parliamentary secretary-and I am sure I am speaking for my colleague, the Minister of National Defence and Veterans Affairs-I want to hear from the member and from other members who speak from the third party, the opposition party and our own party. We have this debate today to find out what the opposition parties want to do. Give us some proposals. Help us. That is why we are having the debate, not to hear the sort of rhetoric we hear: we are not really sure what we should do, sitting on the fence, maybe we should and maybe we should not.
This is a golden opportunity. It is the first time in 45 years NATO will do a peacekeeping job all on its own, with the approval of the security council, with the possibility of participation of partnership for peace countries, with the involvement of Russia, our old cold war ally, under a system that should cause so much excitement and so much possibility for fertile imaginations and learned debate.
I am very disappointed at what the hon. member had to say. What would he like to do?