Mr. Speaker, that was a ten minute exercise in begging the question and avoiding the resolution before the House, which is very clear in its intent. It asks whether the government would be prepared to decide to discharge Canadian Forces to Iraq for its failure to comply with a 17th United Nations Security Council resolution without the passage of an 18th resolution explicitly authorizing force. I would like the minister to clarify exactly where he stands.
Second, he says that the government's position is why there are inspectors operating in Iraq today. Let us be serious. The only reason there are inspectors in Iraq today, as Kofi Annan himself has said, is because of American military pressure and the credible threat of force. Why has Canada not joined its traditional allies, Australia, Great Britain and the United States, in exerting that kind of credible threat of force which has brought Iraq at least to the charade of inspections today?