Mr. Speaker, Treasury Board guidelines offer three criteria for moving quickly: national security and the issue of urgency, health and safety, and ministerial approval. Obviously, everyone can imagine that the government is tremendously concerned about the safety of our diplomats abroad. We have seen many actions in recent months with some of our key allies where security has been at risk and even where death has happened. We have seen that in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Canada has already lost one diplomat. The department moved expeditiously to make some changes to ensure that our diplomats would be safe. I have already offered to the critic of the official opposition and the critic of the third party a full briefing to explain this decision.
In the House of Commons on October 23rd, 2012. See this statement in context.