Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his very illuminating remarks.
Everything he said good about the performance of the Canadian Armed Forces I would back in spades. They are tremendous bunch of people. They put up with an awful lot of discomfort, danger and they perform superbly in very instance.
The minister talked about this being a debate on Bosnia. Obviously it is not a debate on Bosnia, because that is not the subject that we are dealing with. We may hit it peripherally, but there is no opportunity here. I would also point out to the minister that this is March 23. Unless I remember incorrectly, the mandate for our commitment in Bosnia runs out on March 31, eight days from now. Is this the time for us to debate or should it have been done in December or perhaps January, so that we could have had some impact on whether or not we are going to renew our commitment in Bosnia? I think this istoo late.
Also, if this debate were to be on Bosnia, it should have been instigated by the other side.
The airborne inquiry I think has been well laid out. The minister has elected to stop the inquiry proceedings as of November 28. In keeping with his remarks about standing by his decision to disband the airborne, I suggest that he should have extended the mandate of that inquiry to March 6, when the airborne was disbanded and thereby allow the inquiry to determine whether or not he was justified in so doing.
Also I question whether the airborne inquiry is related to the forces as a whole. It will of necessity confine itself to incidents around the airborne itself. I question whether that is in fact relatable to the whole armed forces.
The minister talked about the prevailing negative scrutiny on the armed forces. I very much regret that.
As he said, I have spent many years in the forces. I think they do good work. It is unfortunate that they come under adverse publicity.
However, in the case of Shidane Arone who was tortured and murdered in Somalia, this individual was under that torture and hollering his lungs out for the better part of six hours. I would say he would have been shouting for two of those hours. Where was the commanding officer when that was taking place? Where was the company commander, the platoon commander? Where were the senior NCOs who were allowing this to happen? They could not have avoided knowing that something was going on but they did not intervene.
It will obviously come out in the inquiry that the leadership was not there. Why was it not there? It is because it had not been instilled somewhere else. That is the concern I have when the minister says that everything is great in the armed forces. I do not believe it is great. There are a lot of problems.
The minister mentioned the matter of compensation for the forces and I laud him on that. When we have sailors on welfare there is something wrong in the armed forces.
The minister, basically though, talked about the personnel in the forces and I support him 100 per cent on that. The problem is he did not address the command and control problem which is the one at which this motion is aimed.
The reports from Colonel Oehring and Brigadier-General Jeffries point out very plainly that there is a command and control problem and a morale problem but the minister has not dealt with that. He said that anything is possible. If anything is possible how about commissioning an inquiry to have a look at the overall thing outside the Somalian inquiry. If it is good, congratulations, but if it is not good then let us do something about it because our people are in jeopardy.