Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that I have just been asked to put a price on human rights. I cannot believe that the member is asking me what the value of human rights is in dollar terms. The reality here is that we do not know what has been happening to Afghan detainees.
The member asks how else the government could spend money. Let me give him some really concrete examples. The reality is that, as much as it spouts the rhetoric of supporting our troops, when our troops come home after having served our country, they receive almost no support from the government. I wonder if members in the House actually know that troops coming home out of the theatre of war are entitled to 10 hours of counselling for post-traumatic stress.
The member started off by saying that Mr. Colvin's testimony raised some questions for him. Other testimonies have raised questions for other members in the House. That is precisely the point of having an inquiry. We do not have all of the answers. What we do know for sure is that some of the generals who testified before the committee said that they had not actually been able to do site inspections.
Let me give three quotations. General Hillier said, “That was not part of our mandate in the agreement”. Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier said, “Exactly right and I made reference to that in my comments, that our soldiers weren't trained human rights monitors--”