Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the words of the member opposite. I certainly agree with what he said, that we should not politicize this, that we should look for direction from individuals who are not directly tied to the issue. It is very instructive in taking his credibility to heart when he said that nobody else has validated this; it is only this other individual who formerly worked in the public service, Paul Chapin. Mr. Chapin said, “Colvin's charge is not that there was general torture going on. His charge is that we, Canada, knowingly turned over people to be tortured. And that's irresponsible because he has no hard evidence for that”. That is a former colleague from the public service. He said there were not others. There were in fact three high-ranking generals, Fraser, Hillier and Gauthier, all of whom were on the ground during the time in question, all of whom were clearly in a position of command with respect to the issue of detainees. They saw no torture. They heard of no torture. They reported no torture to the government.
Similarly, we had Mr. Mulroney, another public servant who was specifically tasked with the mission in Afghanistan. He gave his assessment of Mr. Colvin's testimony. He found it lacking. He found there was no evidence of torture that he had seen or that he had been directed to.
We have individuals like Christie Blatchford, an embedded journalist, not someone who would be beholden to the government. Here is what she had to say:
In condemning with the same brush highly professional Canadian soldiers, and to complain that they were complicit in breaches of the law of armed conflict and knowingly buried his reports, it is Mr. Colvin who has some explaining left to do.
That is from the Globe and Mail. We have people like Matthew Fisher, another embedded journalist. There is a growing list of individuals who are casting some degree of suspicion over Mr. Colvin's word.