Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques. His constituents have every reason to be proud of his work.
We did some research in my office, and a good thing. We found, and this was a pleasant surprise, that despite what the government is saying, since 1914 there has only been one time, under the Trudeau government, when troops were sent to take part in a conflict without a vote first being held. That is the only time when a vote was not held in the House on this issue.
There were various approaches, but in the case of World War I, it was during the throne speech, because of the timing. For the Korean War, a debate took place and there was a vote on government ways and means motions authorizing the measures to be taken regarding the war. No vote was taken regarding the Suez Canal conflict. A debate took place without a vote, but the issue was merely the sending of 11 people to monitor the truce.
So, as we can see, there have been debates and votes in the past. There were no debates and votes when the issue was merely the sending of a few people for peacekeeping purposes or similar reasons.
However, since 1993, troops have been sent abroad on several occasions, following take note debates, but not votes. The Prime Minister, who wants to leave a legacy and who surprised us somewhat with his proposal on party financing, should make his legacy to bring back the past practice of allowing members of Parliament to vote before troops are deployed to conflicts abroad.