Laurie Hawn

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the member continually confuses the timelines and I am sure he does that for his own reasons.

He talks about the ICRC and the AIHRC and how they were not passing information. That was the arrangement we had with them. We were trusting them to do that. When we found out they were not, we made changes. That is what he is completely missing, completely ignoring.

The ICRC has refuted the story about dealing with Canadian officials. It said it just does not operate that way. It said it has an excellent relationship with Canada. It said it would never go public unless there was a problem and it never went public.

He is not situating the timeframe for when anything was happening. Sure, there were discussions. They started in 2006 and carried on into 2007, when we actually made changes based on all the information we got from all sources.

I would ask the member to quit misleading the House and misrepresenting the situation by concentrating on what was happening in 2006 and not talking about what was going on in 2007, which is working very well today, notwithstanding that one Taliban got hit with a shoe.

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, with respect to opinions, which is what we have received from various legal experts and people in the legal profession, an expert is someone who agrees with one. That makes the person an expert.

It is interesting to hear the member of the Bloc being so concerned about protecting the Constitution of Canada when in fact those members want to break up the country.

I have a simple question for my colleague with respect to the inadvertent release of the kind of information members are asking for. What is that member going to say to the family of a soldier or aid worker who has been killed because of the release of information, or because an international organization we had previously been able to trust, or that had previously been able to trust us, then withholds that information? What is he going to say to that family?

[Points of Order, December 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am obviously rising to support my colleagues on this.

The opposition has talked about opinions. Opinions are fine, but they have to be backed up by the rule of law. Canada operates on the rule of law. Parliament operates on the rule of law and precedent and convention.

On the first point about documents, the Government of Canada has in fact provided documents as quickly as possible, given the time constraints, the volume of the documents requested and the requirement under the Official Languages Act to have the documents translated into both official languages. In under one week, the committee was provided with relevant memos and details of Mr. Colvin, which were the most sought after documents by the committee. As time goes by, more and more documents will be made available.

On another point, the House of Commons has always recognized the limits of privilege relating to issues of national security and international affairs, as these are Crown or executive constitutional responsibilities that also require a public interest test. The Government of Canada has a responsibility to protect the public interest in these cases and, historically, committees of the House of Commons have respected the public interest test.

Marleau and Montpetit assert this argument in stating:

The House of Commons recognizes that it should not require the production of documents in all cases; considerations of public policy, including national security, foreign relations, and so forth, enter into the decision as to when it is appropriate to order the production of such documents.

Similarly Beauchesne's notes that the Government of Canada, not the Speaker or the House of Commons, retains the right to define confidential documents and that it is up to the government to determine whether any letters, papers and studies are of a confidential nature when deciding how to respond to a notice of motion for the production of papers.

Generally speaking, government members also reject the notion that the House of Commons has a right to cabinet documents. This claim to cabinet documents obviously interferes with the constitutional roles of limits and legislative and cabinet or executive banks of government in our Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, in our strong view, this motion is out of order and we request your wisdom in that judgment.

[Points of Order, December 10th, 2009]

A lie?

[Points of Order, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I already apologized for mouthing inappropriate words. That apology stands.

[Points of Order, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the words were not spoken. The words were mouthed. I applaud the leader of the Bloc's ability to lip-read in English. That is very commendable. I do apologize for mouthing inappropriate comments. The next time I will mouth something more appropriate, like “bovine scatology”.

Since the hon. member is so good at lip-reading, I assume he can read minds, so I would like to apologize for what I am thinking right now.

[Afghanistan, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this is simply outrageous. We have never blamed the military. We have supported the decisions made in the field by the military under very difficult circumstances in very good faith, just as the government has acted in very good faith.

We supported the military decisions then. We support the military decisions today, and we will support the military decisions tomorrow.

The member is incorrect.

[Afghanistan, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, once again this is absolutely false. It is apples and oranges. We are talking about an issue that arose in the House two and a half or three years ago. It was discussed at that time.

It is not an issue of a Canadian transfer into the prison system. It is an issue or a situation of an operation in the field that was conducted, and when Canadian soldiers saw that something was going inappropriately, they took action.

There has never been a single proven allegation of abuse of a Canadian-transferred detainee into the prison system in Afghanistan. They are definitely clutching at straws, and it is just not going to work, because Canadians can see through this.

[Afghanistan, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we have never said this is the military's fault. The military has been acting in good faith with the agreements that have been in place, just as the government has been acting in good faith, and frankly, just as the previous government acted in good faith on the arrangements that were in place at the time.

This is not a new story. Members opposite are hashing this out like it is some kind of revelation. This is an old story that was talked about in this House almost three years ago. This is absolute nonsense. They are trying to pick fly droppings out of pepper to build a story around, and it will just not work.

[Afghanistan, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, what the member is saying is completely false.

We have already addressed that. It was addressed in the House two and a half years ago. The simple fact is it was not a detainee transferred by Canadian Forces. It was an Afghan picked up in the process of the joint patrol by Canadian Forces and Afghan forces. When the Canadian soldiers realized that the Afghan detainee was being abused by the Afghan national police, they took action, as we would expect them to. They took the same kind of action that officials at all levels have taken when they have seen that action is necessary.

Canadian Forces members, governments, everybody along the line, has done the proper thing at the proper time.