Madam Speaker, the House of Commons standing orders provide various opportunities for the government to put forward its legislative agenda, and they also provide various opportunities for opposition members to put forward ideas for debate that are priorities for them and their constituents.
The way the schedule works on Mondays is that we have an hour for Private Members' Business, the government has available two hours for Government Orders and then we have Routine Proceedings, which is a time when members can move motions and table petitions. I could go through all the mechanics of that, but the hon. member knows them well. He knows that concurrence motions and debates are part of the process.
Fundamentally, this is an extremely important issue. There are Afghan Canadians and people of goodwill around the world who I know are watching this debate and are interested in the outcome of this debate, because they are concerned with the cause of freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Afghanistan. This is not about raising that issue only but about raising the broader issues of this new cold war we are in and the lessons we can learn from what happened in Afghanistan for other situations.
I think this is an extremely important issue to be raised in the House of Commons. It is the right place to debate it. It is the right time to debate it. I certainly will make no apologies for putting that idea forward at this time.