Mr. Speaker, I was interested to hear the Deputy Prime Minister speak with words of non-participation in the war in Iraq, and then also listen to him quote former Prime Minister Pearson.
The reality is that we are participating. We are participating because the government is allowing our troops, sailors and airmen to be involved. Doing it in a fashion that is unsafe for our troops is simply not fair to them and not fair to the Canadian people either. If we have taken a position based upon our principles of multilateralism and support for the UN that we are not going to be involved, then we must pursue that.
When former Prime Minister Pearson had the opportunity to be involved in a similar situation regarding the Vietnam war, he did not allow any of our troops to participate. I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister, is that not a precedent that the government should be following?