Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to state that the Canadian population is appalled by the events mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition. As you know, all the troops engaged in the humanitarian work that needs to be done in that troubled part of the world are doing an exceptional job, and I would like to take this opportunity to tell the soldiers posted over there and their families that the government and Canadians are very concerned, and that we will make every effort to support them.
We are currently in contact with most of the 10 Canadian hostages. As members know, the same thing happened last year, and we managed to have the hostages released after two weeks. The current situation is no worse than last year's. We are now making arrangements to talk with the Serbs. We may be in a slightly better situation than the French or the British, because our soldiers, those who were seized are only a few kilometres away from the base at Visoko. We hope that, once the situation calms down, our soldiers will be able to return to their base, and to safety.
In the meantime, we spent the weekend in contact with our allies who have troops over there to try, through diplomatic means, to bring things back to normal in that very complex part of the world. I spoke with the British Prime Minister, the French President and the Secretary General of the United Nations over the weekend. In particular, we want to change the troops' mandate because of the imbalance between the resources at their disposal and the positions they must take. The mandate must be redefined to make it difficult for any one of the warring factions over there, especially the Serbs, to engage in such hostage takings.