Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me in response to my hon. colleague. I would make a couple of points.
Number one, we will be making a response to the hon. member's contention of breach of privilege, but I would suggest it is unfortunate that the hon. member did not give adequate notice so we could have had the appropriate ministers on hand to respond today.
However, I also want to point out to the House and to anyone who may be watching that in response to the hon. member's allegations that the Prime Minister answered 10 questions, the Minister of Foreign Affairs answered 11 questions, and the Minister of National Defence answered only two out of the 23 questions posed by the official opposition, the report in question was a report issued to the Department of Foreign Affairs. So it is only appropriate that the minister responsible for foreign affairs take the majority of the questions.
The member is trying to imply by his line of questioning that the Minister of National Defence should have been the one standing up and fielding these questions when in fact the very report he is alluding to was a report given to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
I would suggest that what we have here, quite frankly, is the hon. member playing petty politics with an issue far too important to the lives of our Canadian troops and to the lives of Canadians in general to play this type of partisan politics game in this House.
We will be responding in due course, but I would suggest to the member opposite that the next time he tries to promote his own partisan politics on an issue of such importance, he do so in a manner that is a little more respectful.