Mr. Speaker, for my hon. friend from Ottawa Centre, I would love to believe that the hypothetical would not arise, but we are living in a time when the basic understanding of how a civilized country behaves seems to be slipping between our fingers.
Our greatest ally and friend is the United States. I have great respect for Barack Obama and I think he is a wonderful and inspiring human being, except he has ordered more unmanned drones to commit illegal murders in other countries than any previous U.S. president. We seem to be taking a very mild approach to the threat of torture. I never thought I would hear a Canadian minister of the crown speak of the possibility that because other things were a bigger threat, the government did not really mind if somebody got information by torture.
There is a lot of moral relativism going on right now in relation to whether we are a civilized country and stand for anything. I believe we are. I believe we always will be. However, this kind of climb down from the treaty commitments that we made, bringing forward legislation that is so weak, indicates that we are prepared to say one thing and do another, because when push comes to shove, we do not stand for anything. I do not think that is what Canadians want to see.