I think there is a lesson in that for all of
us, but I hope the government is prepared to listen to the argument that was made very skilfully and persuasively this morning: that if the
government had been clearer about its position on the very question of the launching of a military offensive in Iraq rather than sort of playing around the edg
es with, “We are in favour of delaying to a certain date but not beyond a certain date, if we could delay the da
...[+++]te”, and never clearly setting out the substantive arguments for why Canada should not be participating in the war on Iraq, then I think we would have seen a display of leadership that would have been easier to stand behind.