Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity and I want to thank the members of Parliament who brought this issue before the House.
Few beliefs have wrought more international agreements between nations on earth and peoples than the simple truth that torture is never justified, that it is always and everywhere wrong. If we are to retain our essential character as a country and represent the values of Canadians, a country that stands for peace and justice, then we simply cannot and must not be complicit as Canadians in torture in any way, shape or form. At root, that is really what this debate is all about and it is why members of the New Democratic Party have brought it before the House for a vote today.
As I was preparing my remarks, I wanted to see what some of the New Democrats who have preceded us in the chamber have said when they raised alarm bells about this. I discovered that on November 4, 2005, a former member of this place, now a minister of the environment in Manitoba, Bill Blaikie, who was then the member for Elmwood—Transcona, first raised the detainee issue in the House.
On November 15, speaking again on the Afghan detainees, he stated:
We have a growing sense of unease about whether in our eagerness, which may well be justified, to combat terrorism we are sacrificing a Canadian tradition with respect to international law that we will rue being exposed to erosion in this way.
It is interesting that was raised four years ago by the member in a very wise and thoughtful way.
The then Liberal defence minister promised at that time there would be an agreement regarding the transfer of prisoners along the lines of the Danish model. The Danes had already established a model for the transfer of prisoners, which included rigorous monitoring of prisoners and access provisions, et cetera. It was considered to be a model.
We then found ourselves in an election in Canada and in the middle of the election, in December 2005, a fatally flawed agreement was signed with no Canadian inspection rights at all, breaking the promise that had been made by the then Liberal minister of defence to members of Parliament.
On April 5, 2006, the member at the time for New Westminster—Coquitlam, who is now a member of the legislature in British Columbia and who was then our defence critic in the House, rose and had this to say:
Once Canadians hand a prisoner over to the Afghan government we wash our hands of the entire matter. This is simply not good enough.
Will the minister ensure that Canadian government officials have the same rights as Dutch officials when it comes to tracking, interviewing and ensuring that no human rights violations or torture will take place?
Here is what the then minister of defence replied. He stated:
There is nothing in the agreement that prevents Canada from determining the fate of prisoners so there is no need to make any change in the agreement.
Of course, we then began to learn more as time passed. The House was told that the ICRC would ultimately inform Canada of any abuse, but this claim was then debunked and the minister was forced to apologize for what he had told the House, because it was in error.
Then, after journalist Graeme Smith exposed abuse in Afghan prisons, a new agreement was ultimately signed in May of 2007 containing many of the elements that New Democrats had recommended should be part of such an agreement. That was over a year and a half after the NDP had raised the issue initially.
According to the alarming allegations by diplomat Richard Colvin, the government had been informed of the abuse of detainees well before 2007. Our foreign affairs and defence critics handled this file.
Today the member for Ottawa Centre, who is the foreign affairs critic for my party, has presented in detail the important issues.
The member for St. John's East and defence critic for my party spoke about the legal ramifications.
I invite the House to listen to their appeal and to vote for the motion this evening.
It is clear that many detainees were tortured and that senior officials knew and knowingly ordered soldiers to keep handing over detainees despite the threat and possibility of torture that they clearly knew existed.
It is not the conduct of our soldiers on the ground that is at question. Let me be very clear about that. Efforts by the government to change the channel and to suggest such things are simply profoundly wrong. It is the conduct of senior officials at the highest levels that is the concern.
A public inquiry is necessary because the government refuses to release the evidence that it possesses to Parliament. Were the government to be introducing the evidence that has been requested, an inquiry might well not be necessary at all. However, that is not what we are facing. We are facing a government that is stonewalling the truth.
Amnesty International, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Amnistie internationale Canada francophone, and Human Rights Watch have all called for a full public inquiry.
This is not a partisan battle. There are concerns about the fact that the government may have been complicit in torture and violated international law in addition to conducting a major cover-up which threatens our diplomats and our soldiers on the ground.
When we send our children into combat we want to be sure that the orders they are given are beyond reproach.
For that reason, the moral imperative to bring the truth to light is unquestionable. The men and women of the Canadian Forces deserve nothing less.
I would urge the House, as we move toward the vote on this matter this afternoon, to consider what would best serve our troops on the ground, what would best serve our concern about human rights, what would best serve our values committed against torture in all circumstances, and our concern about our reputation on the world stage as a defender of human rights. I would urge that we put all of those concerns to the forefront and accept and vote for the creation of this inquiry so that the truth will be told and, perhaps most important from such an inquiry, that recommendations could be put in place so that we will know what to do in the future to avoid finding ourselves in the predicament we are today.