Mr. Speaker, I need an explanation because I am having a hard time understanding why the minister said that.
I served as an officer for 22 years. I knew many officers who participated in various operations throughout Afghanistan, Bosnia, and other parts of the world. We talked a lot at the officers' mess in the evenings. We told stories and sometimes talked about operations, but no one ever said that they had launched or planned a mission in someone else's place, if such was not the case. People were very humble. One of my best friends jumped on a mine on three separate occasions in Afghanistan, and you would have to work very hard to worm it out of him. He considered that to be part of his job and so he felt no need to talk about it.
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are very humble, and when the army awards medals to people for their acts of bravery, it does so based on the recommendation of the superior officers who witnessed those acts. That is how it worked in the Second World War, and that is how it works in other battles.
However, how many hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of people never received a medal because no one witnessed their act of bravery? They simply did their job.
I just want to know why the minister took the credit for something he did not do. That is the big question: why?