Madam Speaker, I wish to put a question to my Bloc colleague. We serve together on the Standing Committee of National Defence and Veterans Affairs and have participated in many debates on military matters before.
Would the member like to comment, extensively if he might, on the Liberal position? He made a couple of points in his speech to which I would like to allude. He stated that the Prime Minister said we would not participate. Indeed, we took a vote to that effect.
My hon. colleague mentioned that it was a contradiction and hypocritical. We have a government that in part 3 of the resolution is congratulating those armed forces personnel, some 32 that we have in Iraq, when they should not even be there according to the government's own vote.
I propose a slightly more detailed question regarding the Geneva convention. We have Canadian troops in Canadian uniforms serving in combat in Iraq. The government has given full permission and not ended the exchange with the U.S. forces. The government has not actually said that these troops are in combat and as a result has put them in a strange situation.
Does he think it is unfair to our forces who are serving there on exchange, that they may be outside the Geneva convention and not covered by it. What does my Bloc colleague think about the government's hypocrisy and what it does to our troops in the sense of not being covered by the Geneva convention?