Mr. Speaker, let me first of all say that at no time have I intended to mislead the House. I have the highest respect for the House and its members and I have always operated in a very straightforward fashion.
The question I answered on Tuesday from the Leader of the Bloc Quebecois I answered in the context of a photograph I had seen on Friday for the first time. When I saw the photograph for the first time I did not connect it with a briefing I had received the previous Monday and the operation our troops had been involved in the day before.
I do receive daily briefings on a number of matters. I was in Mexico City on that day on a bilateral visit with our counterparts in the Mexican government. I was briefed on that occasion. I did not instantly go to phone the Prime Minister. He and I had discussed the matter the week before at a joint meeting of the foreign affairs and SCONDVA committees. We had discussed it in terms of the policy issue and how we would conduct ourselves should we get into a situation involving the taking of prisoners. It is based on the longstanding procedure of following international and Canadian law and the turning over of troops to our allies, in this case the United States, as I clearly indicated when I appeared before the foreign affairs and defence committees.
Furthermore, I waited until I returned home to seek further clarity on a number of aspects of this. There was at the same time a growing controversy about how the United States was handling the prisoners and determining their status. I returned home on Thursday night to Ottawa. On Friday afternoon for the first time I saw a photograph which at first I thought was not connected to what I had been briefed on earlier in the week. Subsequently in discussions with the chief of defence staff and deputy chief of defence staff I learned it was indeed connected. I want to make it clear that they have been absolutely excellent in their briefing of me and in providing me the information in a timely and concise fashion.
Subsequently through further discussion with them I realized there was a connection between the photograph and the briefing on Monday. However the photograph brought to me a new clarity and understanding about the mission they had briefed me on previously, so when I got up in the House and responded to the matter on Friday I believed I was seeing something that was new and in a different context from the briefing I had received earlier in the week.
It was in that light that I gave the answer I did on Tuesday to the question from the leader of the Bloc Quebecois. Subsequently on Wednesday I made it quite clear that I had received appropriate briefings from the chief of defence staff the previous week.
Again, at no time did I intend to mislead the House. I was answering with what I believed to be the correct information, and I will continue to conduct myself in that fashion in the House.