Keep Up Focus & Demeanor; Parliament's Prerogatives

Keep calm, keep demeanor, don't let bluster fool you, keep your nerve, and follow leads. You set the agenda. They can run but they can't hide. They've trapped themselves. Keep on them, you've got them. Parliamentary imperatives compel the production of documents: McKay: "Mr. Speaker, here is what we will do. I will do him one better. We will look at all the documents that will be placed before the parliamentary committee, going back beyond the time that we took office. We will see what his government's record was and how it stacks up against the efforts that we have made to improve the conditions in Afghan prisons. We will look at all of that evidence and then we will see where conditions were improved, when actual investments were made and when the real work was done to improve the situation in Afghanistan, not the Liberals' lame effort." Said in response to Rae: "Mr. Speaker, the period in question is between January 2006 and the fall of 2007. I asked the minister a simple question. Is he now prepared, in the interest of transparency, to give the House of Commons all the information provided to him as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of National Defence, as well as that held by the Prime Minister of Canada with regard to this very important question? I do not wish to cause any offence."

Previously, Layton in response to MacKay: "Mr. Speaker, I assume now then we will get all the evidence about the visits that took place in those particular cases so we can see exactly what happened. Will the minister table them in this House as quickly as possible?" Said in response to MacKay: "Mr. Speaker, the facts and figures that the hon. member has put forward do not apply to prisoners transferred from the Canadian Forces. Those are broad-sweeping numbers that speak to the conditions in the prison. They do not apply to the numbers that were transferred by Canadian Forces. With respect to what we did, we stopped transferring when the agreement was not working; an agreement that we improved upon; an agreement that enabled unannounced, unfettered access to prisoners that we transferred. Let us talk about where the responsibility begins and ends. We took responsibility. We acted. We improved the situation and continue to do so."