Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the discussion this evening and I really appreciate the comments of my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona. He has raised a number of the things that I have heard about from my constituents with regard to Canada's participation in Afghanistan.
In particular, I have heard from constituents about what happens to prisoners who are taken by Canadian Forces members in Afghanistan and that whole concern about whether they are eventually being turned over to Americans in the context of the secret prisons that we have recently heard about, but also in the context of the kind of behaviour the Americans undertook in Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay. That is of major concern to the people in Burnaby--Douglas who contacted me about this.
I was a little disconcerted, as was my colleague, to hear the minister's response to that concern. It seems to me that there is something that is good, that there are negotiations under way and it is good that some of these issues may be addressed, but in the meantime, what happens concerning the whole point about whether Afghanistan is indeed turning these folks over to a third country or to the United States?
I would like to ask the member for Elmwood--Transcona about his comment concerning the militarization of development work. I think he made a very important point. I wonder if he might speak a little more about the kinds of concerns that NGOs have had around that, as I think this is another departure from the kind of work that Canadians expect of Canadian organizations and the Canadian Forces and really is part of the whole departure from our traditional peacekeeping role that he was talking about in his remarks.