Mr. Speaker, I would be grateful if you would let me know as my time draws to a close since I have an amendment to introduce. I want to thank the member for Vancouver South for his great work on this issue.
Recent events have confirmed that Canadians can be proud of the men and women serving in Afghanistan. It is not their actions that are being questioned, but those of the government.
Yesterday, General Natynczyk confirmed that a detainee transferred by the Canadian Forces was mistreated while in Afghan detention in June 2006.
The credibility of the Minister of National Defence is in tatters. Canadians cannot take him at his word. This Parliament cannot trust what he says. The issue here is trust.
General Natynczyk is making every effort to get at the truth, but the government is making no such effort. It continues to withhold certain documents and censor others. It has redacted with what can only be called Soviet zeal. It has intimidated witnesses and public servants. It has cast a chill over Canada's foreign service, as a growing number of former ambassadors have said publicly.
We must have the truth, uncensored and unredacted. That is the privilege of Parliament and the right of the Canadian people. That is the reason for today's motion. The government must account for an entire year of wilful blindness.
The Conservatives had credible information, even photographs, about torture and abuse, but did nothing to put an end to it. Instead they sought to cover up the facts. The issue here is the negligence of the Conservative government, not the behaviour of our soldiers. The questions raised will not be answered by the investigation announced yesterday by General Natynczuk.
We need a full independent public inquiry into the government's year of wilful blindness. This is not a partisan exercise because we are prepared on this side of the House for the inquiry to examine the whole length of the mission in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 under the previous Liberal government.
Let us remember how we got here. The sequence of events is extremely important.
On December 18, 2005, during a federal election, General Rick Hillier, then CDS, signed a detainee transfer agreement with the Afghan government.
The ministers opposite were sworn in on February 6, 2006, and the defence minister has admitted that he heard serious allegations of detainee abuse from the moment the government took office.
In March 2006, the U.S. State Department reported that Afghan authorities, and I quote: “tortured and abused detainees on a regular basis.” However, despite this information, the Conservative government carried on as usual. And a few weeks later, in spring 2006, the first detainees were transferred by the Canadian Forces.
In May 2006 Richard Colvin began sending reports of detainee abuse to his superiors.
On June 2, 2006, the Afghan independent human rights commission reported that a third of detainees handed over by Canadian Forces were abused or tortured in Afghan custody. On that same day Richard Colvin sent another memo with reports of torture in Afghan jails. Still the government did nothing.
Mr. Colvin sent three more reports before the end of 2006. He made additional reports in March, April, June and July 2007. Yet, 17 months, 17 memos, and still the government did nothing.
In 2006, the Canadian Embassy in Kabul had a report on human rights stating that torture was systematic in Afghan prisons. Once again, the government did nothing.
It was during the summer of 2006 that the detainee abuse confirmed yesterday by General Natynczyk took place. It was documented and reported by soldiers in the field who did their job. Still the government did not do its job.
In November 2006 the Department of Foreign Affairs actually issued talking points playing down reports of torture. Secret memos leaked to the press confirmed that the government's priority was spinning the issue rather than preventing torture from occurring.
In February 2007, there were three additional allegations of detainee abuse. That same month, the military police complaints commission initiated an investigation that was blocked by the government.
The government's year of wilful blindness only ended when graphic reports of abuse surfaced in the Canadian press on April 23, 2007.
It was not until May 3, 2007, that the government signed a new detainee transfer agreement. However, that did not put an end to the problems.
Mr. Colvin testified that inspections were infrequent because of a lack of resources. Even worse, he was instructed by his superiors to keep quiet and to stop documenting cases of detainee abuse and torture. Detainee transfers were suspended for the first time on November 6, 2007, because of reports of torture. They have been suspended a number of times since then.
Nevertheless, until yesterday, this minister and this government claimed that no detainee transferred by the Canadian military had been abused in Afghan prisons. We now know this is not true.
The record that I have just taken us through speaks for itself. For over a year the government had credible reports from multiple sources, independent credible Canadian sources, that Afghan detainees were being tortured in Afghan detention centres. These reports came from Canadian diplomats and soldiers in the field, and the government opposite did nothing.
It must account for that year of what can only be called wilful blindness. Its refusal to get to the truth is costing us our credibility as a nation on human rights and engages in a threat to the honour of Canada in the field, that honour which our troops so bravely defend every day. We need the truth. We need it now. Canadians deserve better.
Therefore, I would like to move the following amendment. I move:
That the motion be amended by adding immediately before the word “accordingly”, the following:
“All documents referred to by the Chief of the Defence Staff in his December 9, 2009, press conference; and all other relevant documents; and”.