Madam Speaker, if I am not mistaken, I will be able to finish my speech after Question Period.
Today, as always when I rise in the House, I think of the people in the riding of Shefford who elected me. In fact, these people put their trust in us, and when we speak in this chamber, we do so on behalf of those who elected us.
On March 21, the Minister of National Defence announced that he was establishing a commission that will investigate and report on the functioning of the chain of command, the leadership, discipline, operations and decisions of the Canadian Forces, and the actions and decisions of the Department of National Defence, as to the deployment of the Canadian Forces to Somalia.
Today, the debate in this House is on a motion introduced by the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, and I will read it to you:
That this House condemn the government for failing to commission a broad and public inquiry with a mandate to investigate the government's failure to hold senior officials at the Department of National Defence accountable for command and control shortcomings, deteriorating morale, and decisions which diminished or have failed to improve Canada's defence posture.
The average person will want to know the difference between these two positions. The minister announced he was establishing a commission that will examine the problem of Somalia and the Second Airborne Regiment, while the motion introduced by my colleague wants to expand the scope of the commission to include the entire department and gives us an opportunity to discuss these problems here in the House. As you know, morale in the Canadian military has reached a new low, and that is because Canadians are increasingly reluctant to trust the people at National Defence.
When we refer to the people who run National Defence, we are not talking about the average soldier. They do not make the decisions. We are referring to the people who make the decisions, to the top level officials.