Mr. Speaker, it appears that the irresponsibility goes back one step earlier, and that is that the government continued to maintain, for a long period of time, that to do anything with respect to Mr. Khadr under the previous American administration was “premature”. It was not premature for all the reasons I mentioned.
Certainly once President Obama took the actions he did, it was not only no longer premature but then became necessary from the point of view of justice and even politics for us to seek his repatriation. The government of the day should not now speculate whatsoever on the nature of Mr. Khadr's guilt or innocence because the one thing that is clear, leaving aside the issues of guilt or innocence, is the entire gamut of his rights as a child soldier standing accused were violated both in terms of international humanitarian law and domestic American law.
When President Obama moved to rectify the situation, generically speaking, by ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay by banning torture and the like, that gave the Conservative government the opportunity to go ahead and do that which was just and right. We trust it will now do it.