Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Bloc has raised an extremely important point. We do know this major foreign policy review, discussion and document is to come forward. Presumably all of us will have a very keen interest in it. There will be a lot of debate about it because there are some very sharp differences about Canada's foreign policy and where it should be headed. It seems inconceivable that we would be taking this very precipitous action to separate this department on the eve of when we are receiving a major policy paper on foreign policy and that the debate will take place.
We would want to be assured that what is happening with this department being cut apart will not impact on what happens in the debate, but we have no assurance of that.
The minister is taking very pre-emptive and unilateral action. There was no compelling imperative out there anywhere saying that this department needed to be sawed in half right now.
At the very least the government could have waited until the foreign policy review paper came forward and members had a chance to take a look at it and deal with that paper in the context of the bill.
However that is not the agenda of the government. It obviously does not want to have that debate, so we will deal with it at that time. It is very unfortunate that it has taken place in this manner because it means we will not have the broader context in which to look at that foreign policy review.