Mr. Speaker, I do not question the intent of the inquiry from my hon. friend but we should keep in mind a couple of things.
First, in the preface to his question, I believe he made the suggestion that at times we hand over suspected terrorists to the American authorities but, of course, we do not do that. I just wanted to clarify that. I do not think he meant that but I wanted to clarify that for the record.
Second, it is not our policy to be building Canadian jails or taking responsibility for Canadian detention centres in Afghanistan. In fact, that is something the Afghanis need to do themselves as it is a matter of their own sovereignty.
If we were to do that, I am sure we would be quickly categorized as the Americans have been with its facility in Guantanamo Bay. I can imagine the type of pressure and critique we would be under if we were to do something like that. We are there to assist the people of Afghanistan, its administration and security forces to know and understand what it is to build an effective corrections capability.
Sometimes when we use the word “detainee”, it almost has a benign sound to it. These are not people being accused of jaywalking. These are people who are, in many cases, being accused of the most outrageous atrocities against fellow human beings. It is a very tenuous situation and one in which the Afghan people, as I indicated in my remarks earlier, are already showing an increased capacity, in a humane and effective way, to hold these individuals until they can be brought to justice.