Mr. Speaker, as I understand the terms of the motion that has been proposed by my friend from Ottawa Centre, it refers to the years 2001 to 2009. It is not confined to the period after the Conservatives took office.
On behalf of our party, I want to make it clear that we support the motion. We understand that the implications of the motion are that the conduct of the previous government will be equally subject to scrutiny as the conduct of the current government. It is important for people to understand that. When I say this is not simply a partisan issue, I know there will be chuckles on the other side of the House. However, the fact is that we in this party are supporting a motion that refers to a public inquiry that would look at the conduct of governments with respect to the question of the transfer of detainees.
The minister and others have risen over and over again to say that the agreement that was negotiated prior to 2006 and signed by General Hillier during the election campaign of 2005-06 on behalf of the Government of Canada, was a flawed agreement. If we listened to the comments that were made by Mr. Colvin, we would certainly come to that conclusion.
As a result of that agreement, we discovered, and over time it was found out, that the Red Cross could not report instances of abuse to Canadian authorities. It could only raise them with Afghan authorities. The Red Cross repeated again over the weekend its very strong view that it retains its credibility and its deep neutrality as an organization because it does not engage in political conversations. It has insisted on that. We also found that there was no ability on the part of Canadian authorities to investigate any issues that have taken place.
My simple point would be that the government cannot really have it both ways. The government cannot say, absolutely convinced, 100% certified and guaranteed, that nothing happened untoward with respect to any detainee who was transferred to Afghan authorities, and then say that the agreement was deeply inadequate and that it spent a year and a half in trying to fix it and make it better, and then reached the conclusion that a whole series of steps needed to be taken to ensure that “problems” were dealt with.
Questions arise. What were the problems? What was it that made the Conservative government decide that there needed to be a change in the agreement? What was it that made the government finally led them to realize that it had to make substantial investments with respect to reviewing, inspecting and investigating the whole structure? What was it that made the government do that?