Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday the Minister of Foreign Affairs was asked directly whether the government had been asked to extend the C-17 deployment in Mali. He replied, “Not at this time”. Then yesterday, the Minister of National Defence told reporters that in fact Canada had received such a request “a few days ago”. Not consulting properly before announcing decisions is a worrying tendency by the government.
I have a very simple question. Why did the minister fail to inform the committee about this request?