Mr. Speaker, during those terrible events, we were thrust into the situation without anyone asking us our opinion. The planes crashed and we were forced to react. Perhaps the member across was not here when we debated the matter here in this House. It was a lively, yet difficult debate; lively, because many people had opinions and because we were obliged to abide by UN Resolution 1373. We were obliged to do so. However, this Parliament must also respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As I mentioned in my speech—and I hope the member across listened carefully—the Charter contains certain presumptions that we definitely exceeded.
I now think that, at that time—I repeat, at that time, as I said in my speech—it was perhaps what had to be done. We had to react immediately. The day the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, I was in another country. When I saw the images on TV, I thought that a third world war had broken out and that I should perhaps return to Canada immediately. No one knew what would happen next. There were three plane crashes. There could have been a fourth, as well as a number of other tragedies. We therefore had to ensure a quick and firm response. That is what we did.
Several years later, events have shown that we can now look at it again and our reaction can now be much calmer and much more informed. That is what we are now doing.
I never said that we were wrong. I simply said that we reacted to a situation to which we had to respond and that is no longer the case today.