Mr. Chair, I want to set the record straight on the government's comments about contributions. It was our government that last year authorized and put in the 100 APCs. I was the parliamentary secretary at that time. With our current leader as the former minister of defence, we pushed for and got the 100 APCs into Darfur.
Also, we are the ones who authorized the training. We are the ones who got the helicopters. We are the ones who got the fixed-wings. That is what we did when we were in government.
So far this government has been impotent. All the Prime Minister has done is offer a bunch of words that are not able to save any lives whatsoever.
The member spoke correctly about the African Union, but what he failed to note is that the African Union wants the UN force to go in now. Those troops are pleading and begging for that UN force because, despite their hard work, they are trying to patrol an area the size of France and they do not have the troops, the equipment or the mandate. They see in front of their eyes the very atrocities that members from across the House have been talking about all night long.
The member who spoke is a military man. I want to ask him a direct question. Will he accept this notion? If the African Union wants the UN peacemaking force, which has a chapter 7 mandate authorized by the Security Council, will he stand up in the House and agree with what the African Union wants, which is to have that peacemaking force go in now regardless of what Khartoum wants? Even the United States government and, indeed, international law respect the fact that a Security Council resolution such as resolution 1706 authorizes UN troops to go in even when the leadership of that country says no.
The government in Khartoum has said very clearly that it will not allow UN troops to go in. Why? Because it wants the genocide to continue.