Mr. Speaker, I am simply astonished. In March 2007 the head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the organization with which the Canadian Armed Forces signed a deal so that it would do the tracking of Afghan detainees that are handed over to the Afghan authorities and detained, said that it would do the actual surveillance and monitoring to ensure that detainees are not being tortured and they are not being abused.
That head, Abdul Quadar Noorzai, told reporters that his commission is not in a position to do a whole lot since it has next to no staff, one of the provinces in Afghanistan is too dangerous to enter, and that his people have been denied access to prisons. So how can the Minister of National Defence stand in this House, as he has done repeatedly, to say that the Afghan detainees, people who were captured by our armed forces and then handed over to--