Mr. Speaker, again I would like to raise the same issue we have been talking about, the seriousness of the passport problem we have had.
It amazes me that the parliamentary secretary, although I appreciate the effort he is making, has written answers already to questions which he did not really know were coming. I am rather amazed by that. He was not sure what the questions were that were coming but he has full blown written prepared answers for them.
I have a question for him with which I want to preface some of my remarks. I trust he will throw away the prepared text and give me a real answer for a very real question. This is the whole idea of a question period which is a little fuller and called the late show. The comedy of errors that we have seen over the last few days here in this Chamber leads me to believe that David Letterman is really the guy who is in charge of foreign affairs over there because of the absurdity of some of things we have seen come forward.
The official opposition does understand the importance of supporting our allies in the fight against terrorism. We understand that, we know it and we support it. But as Canadian members of Parliament our first duty is to make sure of the safety of our citizens, which means protecting the good reputation of our passport everywhere in the world, every day of the week, every month of the year.
When we first raised this issue in the House just several days ago, the prime minister assured us that no Canadian agents were involved in this anti-terrorist mission or the illegal use of Canadian passports. That is an important thing for us to find out but of course there have been questions arising from that. After all if Canada does have a secret agreement with other countries to help fight terrorism that changes things.
Also, if Canadian agents were involved in this mission somehow then that puts this Jordan operation in a different light as well. We need to find those answers.
The very first time we put the question to the prime minister he said that Canadians had nothing to do with this mission. When the Leader of the Opposition asked whether or not Canada had been asked for permission by a foreign country to use our passports he said: “I have never been informed of any such request by any government”.
Today we find out that CSIS agents did indeed meet with the Mossad agents on the very eve of the mission. Surely in a meeting between Israeli and Canadian spy agencies on the eve of such a mission this issue might have come up in the conversation. Yet the prime minister told us in this House that it never came up.
My question for the parliamentary secretary is very simple. I trust that he is going to give us a straight answer here, not off prepared notes because he did not know what the question was. The question is simple and straightforward. There has been a flip-flop on the government side. First the prime minister said he had never been informed of any such request by any government and then we find out that the CSIS and the Israeli agents are talking to each other on the very eve of this mission.
Let me ask the parliamentary secretary how in the world can they expect us to believe that the subject of this major raid against Hamas did not even come up in their meeting?