Mr. Speaker, Canadian diplomacy has been severely tested lately. The Sampson and Kazemi cases have shown how insignificant Canada has become on the international scene.
After Mr. Sampson was sentenced to death by beheading on the strength of confessions that were obtained by torture, the Canadian government let him rot in a Saudi prison for 31 months.
Ms. Kazemi died on July 10, in Iran, after receiving a blow to the head during an interrogation and the Canadian government was not even able to repatriate her remains.
We have reason to be concerned about the safety that comes with our nice little Canadian passport and its no-smile photo. Clearly our diplomats have no influence and it is certainly not by entrusting diplomacy to disgraced ex-ministers that Canada will regain its much envied status of the 1950s.