Mr. Speaker, relating to the comments the minister just made, I appreciate that he is a former prosecutor from Nova Scotia. I am a former prosecutor from Manitoba and I had occasion to listen to Mr. Colvin's testimony.
What struck me about the testimony was that there was no first-hand knowledge of who committed abuse on any of the few prisoners he interviewed. He had no knowledge of the key issue that is essentially the knowledge that Canadian soldiers had about the likelihood of abuse, much less torture, on prisoners who were turned over to Afghan authorities.
Here is a man, Mr. Colvin, who spent about half a day out of his entire tour outside of the wire and had these few interviews. As a former prosecutor, I would have real concerns about even initiating a process on that basis. We are not dealing with someone recounting first-hand knowledge about the key issue here.
Would the minister indicate what his concern would be if someone actually commenced a legal proceeding on this basis?