Today, all three opposition meetings called and convened an “unofficial” meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the Mission in Afghanistan. Of course, that committee technically no longer exists. Its work, like all committees, ended with the prorogation of Parliament and it must be reconstituted, if the House so wishes, at the beginning of the next Parliamentary session.
The Opposition, of course, believes that one important reason why Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament was to avoid some of the potentially embarrassing and uncomfortable questions the Afghanistan committee was asking about the treatment by Afghan authorities of bad guys caught by Canadian soldiers.
So if that was the reason Harper tried to shut down the committee, the committee met on their own — Liberals, Bloquistes and New Democrats but no Conservatives. They called some witnesses. They took their testimony.
At the end of the day, Edmonton Conservative MP Laurie Hawn, who is the parliamentary secretary to the defence minister Peter MacKay and who was also a member of the Afghanistan committee, fired off the following to those in the press gallery.
Today, Opposition members held a transparently partisan event. It is clear that they are only interested in politicizing an issue on the backs of our brave men and women in uniform. Instead of undermining our troops, this Government chose action—and improved an inherited Liberal Taliban prisoner transfer agreement that remains the Gold standard amongst our allies.
Both Mr. Mendes and Mr. Drapeau’s views are well known on this matter and nothing new was revealed in their testimony today.
Today’s opposition theatrics confirmed a strategy of smears and insinuations. I and this Government firmly reject any suggestion that Canadian troops are guilty of war crimes.
We have heard credible and first-hand testimony from upstanding Canadians such as Generals Rick Hillier and Michel Gauthier who have firmly rejected such allegations. Parliamentarians should turn their future focus to important policy questions, like Canada’s future humanitarian role in Afghanistan and the end of the military mission in 2011. Unfortunately, the Opposition is more interested in a political circus, purely for partisan gain.
As we have continuously stated, the Government has and will continue to provide all legally available documents both to the MPCC and to Parliament. However, we will not release highly sensitive information that could endanger the lives of Canadian troops in the field. As the Minister of Justice has previously stated, this is not a political process – it is a process carried out by independent experts whose only interest is the application of the law.
The sheer hypocrisy of the Harper government on this issue is truly without equal. The reason so many Canadians want a full investigation is to establish beyond any doubt that it is the government, not our troops, who are responsible for what happened to detainees.
now David why would you give this gratuitous drivel a platform?
still making penance for NAFTAgateLEAK?