Question and non-answer

Even by Question Period standards, Rob Moore has set the bar for sheer lack of content - and on a question where one would expect at least some type of prepared answer:

Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP): Mr. Speaker, on Monday the United Nations will release a report on Canada's human rights record. In recent years Canada has done more to ignore its human rights commitments than it has done to honour them. It is time to end the Liberal legacy of inaction and start complying.

What has the government done to conform with the recommendations that will be made on Monday and what measures has it put in place to ensure an open, transparent and publicly accountable process for coordinating the implementation and compliance of human rights in Canada?

Mr. Rob Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, CPC): Mr. Speaker, this party and this government support human rights. We support human rights in Canada and we support human rights throughout the world.

It's certainly reassuring to see the Cons taking such a strong stand in favour of the right to say absolutely nothing. But it has to be a concern that they haven't apparently shown enough interest in either the U.N. report or anything else to do with human rights to be able to name a single positive initiative. And as poor as the U.N. report promises to be, matters can only get worse with a government in power so unwilling to pay attention to the problem.