Mr. Chair, in terms of the department's handling of the detainee issue in Afghanistan, I really have to say that it was the first question that I asked the minister in the House of Commons the very first day that this Parliament sat. I requested at that time, over a year ago, that the agreement be redrafted.
I said it was a deeply flawed agreement that was agreed to under the previous government. It did not have any provisions for follow-up by Canada. It had no veto on onward transfer of prisoners and it did not have the same strong provisions that other NATO countries had in their agreements.
I asked the minister about that in committee as well. I asked the CDS about it in committee, and I asked department officials about that agreement over the course of that year in committee.
The minister's response at that time was that there was no intention of redrafting the agreement. The CDS and the officials of the department really kind of brushed off my concerns.
Why did it take so long for the minister to acknowledge the deeply flawed agreement and the problems within that agreement? Why did the government have to wait until human rights activists took it to court before it acknowledged the depth of the problems and then did redraft it?