Madam Speaker, answering the last question first, it changed with the Liberals. Respect is due to the Conservatives for the fact that there was a vote in the House on the Gulf war. I do not remember the exact context of that day or what other reasons there may have been, but the fact of the matter is that the House of Commons was consulted in a more meaningful way. That should stand as a precedent which the House should follow, but it is clear that the Liberals do not accept that.
The minister of defence in his speech today talked about the practice of the last eight years. It is clear that the Liberals have a different view of what the role of parliament is with regard to this issue. The minister of defence said that this was a hypothetical situation. We agree and we hope that the House is never faced with such a question. However it is certainly not out of order for us to discuss what the appropriate process should be if in fact certain things happen in the future.
The minister also asked what would happen if we had to act quickly and the House was not sitting. There would be opportunities even after the fact for the House to say whether or not it approved. It seems to me that the Liberals are just backing and filling and not being honest with us which is to say they are not telling us that it is their policy to exclude the House of Commons from voting on very important matters when they are quite content to have us vote on all kinds of other things.
The member said that Canadians expect it of their members of parliament. It would be very hard to explain to constituents the fact that we get to vote on a, b,c, d and e, but when it comes to something really important, we do not get to vote on it. When it comes to something really important, Canadians would expect their members of parliament to have a chance to vote on it. It is one of the ongoing mysteries of Canadian parliamentary tradition that we do not.