Friday Nov. 4, 2005

Hon. Bill Blaikie (Elmwood-Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister's capacity for self-congratulation seems to know no end. The Liberals continue to be ethically challenged with respect to their own behaviour, but I would hope against hope that they are not ethically challenged when it comes to something like torture.

Given the recent revelations about secret CIA prisons on top of what we already know about Guantanamo Bay, I want to ask the Minister of National Defence or the Deputy Prime Minister whether the government is reconsidering its policy of uncritically handing over those captured by Canadian Forces to the American forces?

Hon. Keith Martin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this is what our Canadian Forces do. When we have members from Afghanistan that we actually apprehend, those people are questioned, some are released, some are handed over to U.S. troops, some are handed over to Afghanistan authorities. But for all of them we notify the Red Cross about their whereabouts and the conditions upon which they were released. All are treated under the Geneva Convention and we feel utterly confident that our Canadian Forces members are treating those people in full accordance with humanitarian law.