Mr. Speaker, to begin with I would like to thank the hon. member, along with several other members of the House, who accompanied me to Haiti last week on a fact finding mission to determine what the future of the mission should be. I very much appreciate the involvement of members of Parliament in that very important task.
In saying that, it is not possible to answer the question because at this point we do not know specifically what will be recommended. Options are being considered to substantially reduce the size of the force. Before that happens the Haitian government has to make a request to the United Nations security council. Until we know what the request is and what the security council decides it is not our position to say what our responsibility will be.
What I can say to the hon. member-and he knows this-was that part of my mission to Haiti and other Latin American countries was to ensure that they understood that Canada does not participate in missions such as this by itself. We want the full participation of other countries and the full mandate of international organizations.