Madam Speaker, earlier today the member for Red Deer reminded me that the present Prime Minister and the present foreign affairs minister rose in the House a number of times condemning the Conservative government for the lack of debate and the lack of a vote on the 1991 Desert Storm crisis. Today we see the opposite occurring. According to the Liberal government we are not to have a vote. We are not having the kind of debate we in the opposition would like to have. The Conservatives are now attacking the Liberals for not doing exactly what they were attacked for in 1991. The whole process gets a little confusing.
I remember in the last parliament the debate on whether we should send troops to Bosnia. Much to our dismay, while we were debating whether we should send troops to Bosnia, we learned that the troops had been sent three days before the debate began.
I certainly agree with the motion. We should have a vote on the issue. However, would the member not agree that before we can accomplish anything legitimately in the House of Commons that we really need some serious changes in terms of open, honest, transparent debates and freer votes to vote the wishes of the people we represent and not the wishes of the party whips?