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.