Mr. Speaker, I want to correct a statement. The hon. member said that during the Vietnam war the people who came to Canada were all conscripted. That is not true. Some of them were, but there is a good number who fought in Vietnam voluntarily and then refused to continue fighting. Some volunteered and then decided, after seeing what other soldiers were going through, not to go at all. Of the 50,000 people who came to Canada, a good percentage of them were in fact not conscripted.
Also, we cannot presuppose that these young men and women are criminals. I talked about Sergeant Patrick Hart, who has been in the army for eight years. He is a decorated solider. To say that these people are criminals is presupposing that they have committed a crime. Can we say to a person who has refused to kill another human being that he or she has committed a crime? I do not consider that to be a crime, especially in a war that is not sanctioned by the United Nations and a war in which Canada refused to participate. I am quite proud that Canada did not send soldiers to Iraq, and as such, they did not have to go through the kind of experiences that many of these war resisters have had to experience.
We need to listen to their words. Joshua Key, for example, said that he saw a young girl being shot in the back of the head. After that experience, even though he had been there for over a year, he could not continue that kind of tour of duty and he left.
I hope that my colleague takes the time to read the account of these soldiers who are in the Iraq war and understand that some of them have been subject to a stop-loss extension, which means that they had to go back for a second, third or fourth tour of duty and they did not want to do so. There is nothing voluntary about that. They are conscripted to go back many times against their will. That is why they are here.