Debates of Dec. 1st, 2009

Opposition Motion--Transfer of Afghan Detainees

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

If the hon. member could be quiet for a few seconds and allow me to respond. I was just going to tell him that December 2, is tomorrow; less than 24 hours from now. All the documents that legally can be presented to the committee will be. The Prime Minister confirmed that. I would ask the hon. member to be a little patient. I can understand his impetuousness. He sees scandals and commissions of inquiry everywhere, but let him take a deep breath and settle down. He will understand how this all works.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I have a really short question for my hon. colleague. The special committee is under way right now. As he mentioned, the opposition controls that committee. They are the masters of their own fate.

Does it not make sense for the special committee to finish its work before we run off with our hair on fire seeking a public inquiry?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on the principle of coming forward with all of the information, making sure that this is a clear and transparent exercise, the Canadian Forces have nothing to reproach themselves for. They have done this in the right and proper fashion. Indeed, the government, when it witnessed the lamentable way the previous government handled this issue, did the appropriate thing and put in place the appropriate mechanisms. We have to continue until we can complete this.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Outremont.

Canada has been involved militarily in Afghanistan since 2001 and questions about detainees have been asked for years.

Reports are available from the U.S. state department and Human Rights Watch saying that torture was and is commonplace in Afghan prisons.

Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association sought a court injunction to stop detainee transfers. The morning of the first hearings in May 2007, the Conservatives signed a new detainee transfer document.

This agreement contained many of the elements that New Democrats had been asking for: a rights of inspection of Afghan prisons, a right of follow-up and a limit on the prisons to which detainees could be transferred.

However, since 2007 almost no documents have been released about inspections or follow-ups that we may or may not have done. The only documents that have been released were compiled in the summer of 2007 and contained allegations of torture from the reports of Canadian officials. It was stated by these witnesses that wounds of abuse were seen.

The government has refused to release any documents related to any inspections that may or may not have happened around these various halts in transfers.

The Military Police Complaints Commission has been investigating detainee abuse in transfers and the government has not given it a single page of evidence since February 2008.

This is clearly an attempt to cover up. Because the opposition members are asking for answers and for the truth to be revealed, the Conservatives claim that the opposition do not support our troops. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are simply using our troops as a shield so they do not have to release documents and answer questions

This is in the same vein as government statements that the war is protecting women and children. Claims have been made by the government that our soldiers are there to protect women and children. We have heard this 100 times. Yet the situation and realities of life for many women and children have not improved. The establishment of women's rights has long been used to justify Canada's intervention in Afghanistan when, in fact, the U.S. led coalition entered Afghanistan in response to 9/11 and under the right of self-defence after the Taliban regime allowed al-Qaeda to base itself in that country.

Women's rights groups and female Afghan parliamentarians have stated that women's rights have not improved in Afghanistan, nor are they a priority for the government there. In fact, leaked Government of Canada reports say that women's rights have not improved since the fall of the Taliban. The Taliban regime committed horrendous atrocities and prevented women from enjoying even basic human rights.

However, the Taliban does not have a monopoly on the abuse of women's rights. Other armed groups, such as the Northern Alliance, also have a history of oppressing women. Former Northern Alliance warlords are now local governors and members of the Karzai government.

In fact, after the election of Mr. Karzai, the Afghan department for vice and virtue was reinstated. This notorious department was responsible for many of the atrocities committed during Taliban rule.

In addition, in an effort to fight the Taliban, international forces have made deals with notorious warlords and armed militia who are complicit in the abuse. This means that women are unable to turn to the very forces who are supposed to protect them.

In June 1997 the NDP defence critic tabled a minority report on Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, outlining among other things that Afghan women were not adequately protected or supported by the international military presence in their country. This has been completely ignored by the government.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has reported that women and girls continue to be threatened and deprived of their human rights. The first basic right is the right to education.

Today 1.8 million girls are enrolled in school. However, girls represent only 35% of Afghan's total school going population. At the grade 1 level, girls constitute about 40% of the students. This percentage becomes progressively smaller at middle school, at about 34%; and by grade 12, females account for only one-quarter of the students. Girls living in rural areas have significantly less access to schools than those in urban areas.

According to the commission, the cultural requirement to have female teachers creates a vicious cycle. Girls are not educated due to lack of female teachers, which in turn prevents the development of female teachers to educate the girls. This attitude is deeply entrenched in Afghan society and is unlikely to undergo any radical change in the near future. Women constitute only 28% of existing teachers, and of them, 80% work in urban areas.

The commission further reports that attacks by insurgents on educational facilities have jumped dramatically in the last few years. In 2007 there were 55 security threats and over 180 attacks carried out on schools, killing 108 people and injuring 154. The first three months of 2008 saw five threats and 24 attacks, with two people killed.

The situation is particularly critical in the south where the insurgency is strongest. Attacking schools is usually the last step in a long process of intimidation that keeps Afghan children, particularly girls, out of school. Other types of attacks and intimidation techniques include threatening letters, threats of kidnapping, attacks on teachers, intimidation of local officials and attacks on schoolgirls on their way to school, using acid. We saw that on television: little girls scarred by acid.

Such actions have forced the closing of more than 200 schools in 2007. The primary targets of the attacks, of course, were schools where boys and girls attended classes together or where they shared a building. Security was the number one reason cited by the AIHRC investigation crew when it looked at the allegations of girls being prevented from going to school by relatives.

Women are also denied basic access to health services. According to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, every 30 minutes in Afghanistan a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth. That is 60 deaths for every 1,000 live births, which is 60% higher than in the industrial world, and 80% of those deaths are preventable.

Recent studies by the commission show the reasons women lack access to health care include the traditional ones: the non-existence and lack of health centres, a poor economy, lack of self-sufficiency, lack of participation in their own affairs, lack of attention to their health issues by the families, and domestic violence and illiteracy. According to the studies conducted by the commission, 24.6% of people have no access to acceptable health services, and the majority of them are women. In addition, 54.8% of people cannot use the so-called health centres due to the long distances involved.

The level of accessibility to health services varies. Women's access to health services is only 5% to 7% in the southwest, and in some districts of central Afghanistan there are no female doctors and no health workers. This situation exists despite national and international laws emphasizing the need for women to access health services.

The commission also outlined forced marriage as a serious barrier to women's rights in Afghanistan. These marriages come about through various means, including as a way to settle a feud; huge dowries; or threats of intimidation. These marriages can include underage marriages, that is, where a child is forced to marry an older man or where a child is engaged when she is born. Widows are still considered a heritage and are not allowed to marry other men willingly.

Finally, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reports that violence against women is prevalent. The participation of women in Afghan public life is still relatively low, and the majority of violence against women takes place within the family. According to UNIFEM, 80% of violence against women occurs within their families. Domestic violence is a serious problem, accounting for a third of the total violations against women. Often the violence is so debilitating that women may choose to run away and be put in jail rather than tolerate the abuse.

Abuse, suicide, domestic violence, forced prostitution, addiction to narcotics, all of these exist in Afghanistan. What are our troops doing there? What is the government covering up? Why can we not hear the truth?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her insight on the conditions that exist over in Afghanistan and for pointing out the fact that this is a terrible tragedy that is happening in the world and a lot of people are suffering because of it.

The motion before the House is basically pursuant to the defeat of a previous motion indicating that the committee's rights were breached because it did not have access to documents, further stonewalling by the government and it not being able to do its job. That motion was not dealt with. Now we have this opportunity to express more specifically the reason for a public inquiry.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs just spoke and one of the things that he said to us, in addition to all the terrible things that are going on in Afghanistan, was that we are also trying to prevent possible terrorist attacks against Canada. He also said that the 2005 agreement on Afghan detainees was inadequate. If it was inadequate, does that mean that torture of detainees could have happened?

Then he said--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for London--Fanshawe.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that there are more questions than answers in all of this. It behooves this Parliament and the Conservative government to answer the questions and be forthright. If detainees are being tortured, we need to know about that. We cannot always depend on the Karzai government or the reports that we hear officially.

A few days ago. Malalai Joya, a young parliamentarian from Afghanistan, was in Canada. She cannot live in Afghanistan anymore because she had the audacity to speak the truth about what was happening in her parliament and in her country. She asked the people of Canada to take a step back and consider the impact of what is happening to Afghani people. She begged us to do that and we need to do that. To begin with, an inquiry would be an important step.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, at the end of her remark, my colleague asked what are we doing there. We are there to make a difference. She outlined some of the areas where we have made a difference. Forty thousand fewer babies are dying every year because they have basic health care. There are more women in Afghanistan's parliament than there are in Canada's Parliament. Thousands of small businesses have been started, mostly by women. Those are just three areas, and there are more things that we are there to do.

I have a simple question for her: If Canada and like-minded countries like Canada are not there and cannot be there to help the Afghan people to some prospect of a decent life, then who in her fantasy world would be there?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will ignore the tone of that. I find it insulting but of course it was intended to be insulting.

It is interesting that the Conservatives have the audacity to talk about basic health care when it is very clear that women cannot access basic health care.

Mr. Karzai just signed another agreement, a law put in place, where women can go nowhere unless they are accompanied by their husbands. They cannot go to the doctor unless the husband says that it is okay.

In terms of female parliamentarians, there very well may be more in Afghanistan than in Canada, much to our shame, but the reality is that those women cannot speak out. Malalai Joya talked about rape. She talked about the fact that MPs who had the courage to speak out had their children murdered. She talked about the fact that when the son of one of the parliamentarians raped a five-year-old child, he was protected by the Karzai government. For that, she had four attempts on her life. She cannot live in her own country. She cannot stay inside the territory of Afghanistan because she had the courage to speak out.

That is what happens to women in Afghanistan. In this Parliament when women speak out they are challenged and called what? Insipid, silly, imagination at will?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a motion introduced by our party, the New Democratic Party, to establish a commission of inquiry, pursuant to the Inquiries Act, into the transfer of detainees in Canadian custody during the current conflict in Afghanistan.

We are focusing on the period between 2001 and 2009. In that period, two governments were in power. It covers a number of years, primarily when the Liberals formed the government and also when the Conservatives governed with a minority in this House.

First it is important to create the proper context for a debate on torture and examine why it is so important to determine whether our armed forces were involved in the transfer of detainees to an authority, the Afghan government, which may have abused or tortured them. We know that international agreements, primarily the Geneva conventions, prohibit the transfer of a detainee in times of war if there is a risk of torture.

First, there is simply the human side of this. Torture is unacceptable. Second, it is a problem, because even if we do not think about other people, we must at least think of ourselves. Our own soldiers and members of our armed forces could end up in the same position one day. It would be very hard for us to invoke the Geneva convention if we have a very bad record when it comes to the treatment of prisoners.

As for the first part, the moral aspect, it is important to put the writings of the current Liberal leader into perspective. When he was in the United States, he had no problem writing a number of justifications for abuse and mistreatment. I would even say that the current Liberal leader, from his exalted position as a professor at Harvard University, became an accomplice to the American government of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, by giving them the terminology they used to justify torture.

The Liberal leader took a page from the book of George Orwell, whose Newspeak is all about changing the terminology, when he said that we should no longer talk about “torture”; we should say “enhanced interrogation techniques”. What happened next? We saw the American president, Vice-President Cheney and other government officials say that water boarding could be acceptable. The former Liberal leader established some criteria. There should not be permanent damage, harm to physical health, and so on.

When someone does not have a moral GPS, they write things like that, and that is unfortunately the case with the Liberal leader.

Torture is torture, period. But it had become a sort of touchstone. Were we tough enough to live in a world where we knew that there was a vast terrorist plot to destabilize our governments? I would venture to say that the thing that has most destabilized our governments is the loss of our moral authority in the world, because our governments, our democracies, are based on values, and one of our values is that we do not tolerate torture and we cannot outsource torture. We cannot leave it to someone else to have it done.

In this case, there are several different versions and sometimes different versions from the same person. The current Minister of National Defence has contradicted himself so much in recent weeks that a commission of inquiry is needed to shed light on this issue.

At one point, the Minister of National Defence said one thing in this House and, later the same day, stood in the corridor behind us and said the opposite for the television news. The public has the right to know two things. First, are torture and the transfer of detainees to people who might torture them still prohibited under Canadian law? Second, will the government comply with international law, specifically the Geneva convention? If so, then we have the right to know what happened in Afghanistan.

Instead of coming clean and admitting that, given the contradictory versions, the best thing to do was to shed some light on this disturbing matter, we heard personal attacks levelled against very credible people of the highest calibre. We were very surprised to hear the government attacking Mr. Colvin. We will have the opportunity to see what the Conservatives do with people who say the opposite of what they want to hear. Putting his own career on the line, of course, he had the courage to write down repeatedly that he was very worried because, according to all available information, it appeared that people were being tortured in Afghan prisons.

No, he was not present during any torture sessions, otherwise, things would be altogether different. The Conservatives keep saying that he did not witness any torture himself. Of course he did not see any, as if a Canadian official would stay and watch. However, according to all the available information, he knew torture was taking place. He therefore wrote about it and appeared here.

He is being mercilessly attacked by the Minister of National Defence. What a shame. The Conservatives had just appointed the same Mr. Colvin to a very important strategic intelligence position in the United States. And now they are telling us that he has no credibility and we should not believe a word he says. No problem. They simply found another senior Canadian diplomat and dragged him by the scruff of the neck before the parliamentary committee. It was something to see. That other diplomat knew what the government expected of him, but he nevertheless managed to say that Mr. Colvin's concerns were valid and well founded.

An authority was set up to deal with such matters. That authority within the Canadian armed forces is the Military Police Complaints Commission. In accordance with an act of Parliament, it has a very serious responsibility to keep a critical eye on what our soldiers are doing and to make sure that their actions obey the rules governing ethical conduct in time of war. So what happened? The government engaged in systematic obstruction to the point that the chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission, which examines the actions of our armed forces, has been forced to suspend the commission's work. But are they ashamed of that? Not at all. What are they doing now? They are saying that he was the one who decided to suspend the hearings. He explained that he could no longer hold hearings because he was being blocked at every turn.

What happened to the noted scientist responsible for nuclear safety who sounded the alarm by saying that there was going to be a shortage of isotopes? They fired her. What happened to the person in charge of investigations at the Competition Bureau who revealed what was going on in the oil industry? They fired her. Last week, the person responsible for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's ethics review dared to say things that the government did not want to hear. They fired him. That is how the Conservatives have operated time after time. Anytime upright people dare to say what the Conservatives do not want to hear, they try to fire them. They did the same thing with Mr. Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who dared to tell the truth and who was always right.

In closing, for all of these reasons, the only way to be sure of anything is to hold a proper public inquiry. That is how we will find out who is telling the truth—the Minister of National Defence or other very credible individuals. I am eager to find out.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I have a fairly simple question for my hon. colleague. He mentioned that was had heard at committee were personal attacks against people of the highest credibility and character. I wonder if he would comment on the comments from across the floor, that the generals were morally weak and legally flimsy, and that General Gauthier could be characterized as a war criminal.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, just so that no one thinks for one second that any one on this side said any of that, I intend to make that point perfectly clear from the outset.

With regard to the varying versions, I will stick with Mr. Colvin. He is one of the most important members of our foreign service who is so credible and respected that the Conservatives promoted him to the top job in Washington, and then the weakling Minister of National Defence attacked him unjustifiably and unacceptably because he dared tell the truth and tell the Conservatives something they did not want to hear.

If they have nothing to hide, let them call a commission of inquiry.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this morning the member for Toronto Centre spoke on behalf of the Liberal Party and reminded the House that, in fact, it was the Liberal government that got involved in Afghanistan after 9/11, so that any inquiry period that we would be dealing with here would be starting in 2001, up to the current period, covering two successive governments.

So, the question that I would have is, why would the Conservatives be so reluctant to have an inquiry when the other half of the equation, being the former government that was in power for half of the time, is more than willing to agree to the inquiry?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as far as we are concerned, the only way to see clear in this file is to conduct a full commission of inquiry precisely because of the fact that there are interests on that side of the House who are trying to hide what has happened for the past four years.

And of course, with regard to the Liberals, their lack of a moral compass is something that will come back to haunt them. Their current leader, it should be borne in mind, not only used his important and august function at Harvard University to say that Canada was a weakling for not getting involved in the war in Iraq, and we all know how well that turned out, but he also went after Canada for not understanding that basically, as long as we do not call torture torture, we can torture.

He used his position at Harvard to write learned papers to provide Dick Cheney and George W. Bush with the terminology, the Orwellesque terminology for torture. It was going to be enhanced interrogation techniques.

That is exactly what the Geneva accord provides, that we are not allowed to torture, but we are also not allowed to transfer to somebody else who is going to torture. If we are not allowed to torture directly, we certainly cannot do it indirectly. We are not allowed to subcontract the torture.

That is what the allegations are from very credible people, people who are so credible that the Conservatives named them to the highest position of intelligence gathering in the United States of America at our embassy. That is why they have something to hide. They do not want those emails to be made public. They do not want the Canadian public to know.

However, contrary to the Liberal leader and contrary to the Conservatives, the Canadian public has a strong moral compass. Canadians will continue to demand that this House do the right thing and force the holding of a commission of inquiry, so that they will know what actually happened.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the speech by the hon. member for Outremont regarding the motion on the issue of torture in Afghan prisons. I have a quick question for him. Of course he has already been asked the question, but I will rephrase it to give him a chance to express some other points.

Why is the Conservative government refusing to shed light on torture in Afghan prisons?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is simply because they have a guilty conscience. They have something to hide.

The successive contradictory versions from the weakling Minister of National Defence cannot all be true. He contradicts himself from one day to the next. We could conclude that he misled the House with one version or another. While we are at it, if the government is above reproach and have nothing to hide, let us have a commission of inquiry on what really happened and let the public decide.

Do you know what? That is what they are afraid of; being judged by the public. That is why they have the nerve to use our armed forces as a moral guarantor. How scandalous. How shameful. How sad.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate. I want to say first of all that I support the motion before the House.

This debate has absolutely nothing to do with the support of Canadian soldiers in the field. Having been to Afghanistan on two occasions, I can say that they are of the highest quality, the highest standards, and that our men and women deserve and I know receive the support of all members in this House.

The issue is about the conduct of the Government of Canada. It is about the direction that the government is going in. As the vice-chair of both the defence committee and the Afghan committee, I find it very troubling that we are not able to have the documentation that we need in order to do our job. Apparently others have that right, whether they be former generals or people in the press, but the members of the committee who are charged with the responsibility of looking into these issues, into these allegations, do not have the documentation.

This Parliament passed a resolution in 2008, and I want to read one part of it to the House:

(a) commit to meeting the highest NATO and international standards with respect to protecting the rights of detainees, transferring only when it believes it can do so in keeping with Canada’s international obligations;

That is what this House passed and members on the other side voted for that. That is our moral responsibility and, indeed, our legal responsibility, both under the Geneva Convention and the articles of war.

We have heard from the other side that somehow while the 2005 agreement was clearly not adequate, the Conservatives brought in a tougher one later on. Nobody is disputing that. The question is, from the generals who appeared before us, Mr. Mulroney and others, that we really did not know what we were getting into in 2005, but clearly if there was a problem, why did the government across the way decide to change the agreement, to amend the agreement? If there was no abuse, and no one can categorically say that there was not, then why did we have to amend it? We had to amend it because obviously there were issues out there.

In one of these redacted documents, and again when we are reading something with all this black in it, it is very difficult, one of the memos from Mr. Colvin's email which was copied to Mr. Mulroney, Colleen Swords and others, and I do not even know the date because unfortunately it is blacked out, under 19 it says:

Apart from non-access to detention facilities themselves, the main difficulty we faced was in correctly identifying “our” detainees. [blacked out] explained that they had no list of “Canadian” detainees....Moreover, the information in our possession was quite limited. The names were written only in English, not in Pashto. We had no photos or other descriptions of each detainees, only their age and the name of their village (not even the district) in [blacked out]. Of the [blacked out] only in [blacked out]--

And it goes on. From that, clearly there is either something to hide or the fact is that we did not know what we were transferring, but certainly the International Red Cross did. Certainly, the Americans did and others did. I am sure that pressure was brought to bear and is why the government decided to change the agreement.

The agreement that was entered into in 2005 was to meet the requirements we thought of at the time. Clearly, there were allegations out there, these allegations made by Mr. Colvin and others. Mr. Colvin is a respected public servant. The generals before us are all well respected. No one questions that.

The questions are, what did the government know, what information did it have, and what did it do with that information when it received it? If the government has nothing to hide, then why does it not allow a full public inquiry? That would also be very helpful, both to those who have come forward on both sides of this issue and also because we as a committee, and I think this is very important, are constrained in our ability to seek the answers because first, we do not have the documentation, and second, we have seven minutes in which to ask questions. It is pretty hard to get the question and answer in seven minutes. I know that is a difficult situation at least for members.

Maybe, on the other side, some members there have seen these documents in their entirety. They claim they have not, but at this point we say a public inquiry because we are not able to function. In fact, it seems like a Hollywood backdrop. Witnesses come in and certain members are briefed on this information who come before the committee. The members try their best, but at the end of the day, we do not have the information we need. So this is also a moral issue.

We have a moral obligation to Canadians to ensure that we are extremely above board. The government, if it were needing to hide anything, would certainly makes these documents available, certainly to members of the committee, but also would be forthright in saying there is a conflict here. We have a situation where a former defence minister indicated he knew nothing that happened and yet 19 memos were sent to the government indicating that there were concerns of torture.

Then we have the current minister who has changed his mind from time to time depending on the situation. My mother used to say “never be a prevaricator of the truth because you will have to remember what you said or not said at some point”. It is better to simply tell the truth right up front. Unfortunately, we do not seem to be able to get the answers we need. Is the government covering up? One would assume, if members are not prepared to release the documentation, if they are not prepared to be forthright, that is the only conclusion one can come to.

On the issue of international responsibilities, our soldiers are performing extremely well in the field. We know they are taught very strongly about what to do when they have a prisoner. So there are concerns when these people are turned over to Afghan jails. No one is suggesting that Afghan jails are top notch. In fact, they are a disaster. We know they are a disaster and that is why on at least three occasions the transfers were stopped. If they were not stopped then everything would have been fine. But clearly they were stopped because there were these allegations out there. I find it hard to believe, as a member of Parliament, that the government did not know because otherwise it would not have stopped something if everything was fine.

On this side of the House we listen when government members speak. On that side of the House we hear catcalls. If we really want to have a thorough and full debate, then they should listen, even if they do not like it. At committee we try to extend the same courtesy across the aisle, but the government is stonewalling. We saw what happened at the Military Police Complaints Commission, another example of where it was thwarted from doing its job because of the situation.

I should point out that my friend and colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, will be splitting time with me.

I want to point out that the special committee on Afghanistan is not able to do its job because it does not have the tools to do it. Unfortunately, although everyone on the committee certainly has good intentions, they cannot do that. So the issue now comes down to certain people saying one thing, certain people saying another thing. We need a full public inquiry, where the documentation can be provided, where we can actually get the answers and not in seven minutes, so we can move forward on this issue.

Again, I refer to the resolution that Parliament supported. It referred to protecting the rights of detainees. We have to walk the talk. We cannot pass a resolution and then ignore what is in the resolution. We have a responsibility and I would suggest that if the government has nothing to hide, call a public inquiry. Let us find out the real facts and then not only will Parliament know but Canadians will know.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Toronto Centre, when he spoke, talked about the British and the United States governments as two governments that actually have a process to deal with the treatment of prisoners. I would like to ask the member, does he feel that the process of having an inquiry would actually improve the public policy?

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are in the business of good public policy, so I would suggest to the member and members of the House that it would in fact enhance good public policy. It is important that we look at all of these facts in a very clear way. The only reason, by the way, we are calling for a public inquiry, why we are supporting the motion, is because the special committee on Afghanistan cannot get to the bottom of it because of redacted documents, because of the failure to really do the probing. From our standpoint, I think the result would be what the member suggests.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I find the member's statements troubling. In fact, I find a number of the statements made by the official opposition on this issue to be really reprehensible and troubling.

The member specifically said that he did not have enough evidence. Three top army generals sat before the member and provided evidence. General Hillier, General Gauthier and General Fraser sat before the member and provided evidence refuting any testimony that there had ever been any indication of torture of detainees turned over by the Canadian Forces.

What was the member's response to that? He said, “We don't know who to believe. I do not know whether to believe these three generals who are Canadian heroes or not”. That was the statement made by the member and it is reprehensible. He should stand in his place and apologize for questioning their comments.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I find reprehensible is that someone in the peanut gallery would stand and not only makes accusations that are not correct but if the member had bothered to listen he would have heard, one, my support for the troops and, two, support for the generals.

The fact is that the crowd over there always likes to stand behind supporting the armed forces. They do not have a monopoly on support for the armed forces any more than we do. The should get with the program and stop trying to change the channel. The channel is their competence and their watch that we are looking at, not the generals and not our soldiers in the field. They should not try to pull that nonsense in here.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member who has experience on the defence committee. I would ask him to remind us all what the role is of parliamentarians in overseeing generals and the Canadian armed forces.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are obviously in the business of public policy and, ultimately, the armed forces is responsible to government. It is the government that dictates policy.

What we are looking at, as my colleague knows, is the policy of the government, not the actions of our soldiers. Our soldiers respond to policy that is derived from government. If the government does not have anything to hide, it should be able to do so. Our soldiers carry out their responsibilities based on government policy.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the Human Rights Watch, which is an internationally recognized body, takes an interest in issues of human rights throughout the world. It has also supported the call for an independent inquiry. Does the member think this kind of call affects the international reputation of Canada if we do not have one?

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our central tenet for foreign policy has always been human rights and the protection of the individual. I would certainly concur with my colleague's comments. They are well-founded and I think would have an effect on a country that is known for both its support of human rights historically and the security of the individual.