Thank you.
I'm not a member of this committee, so I'm not as well versed on this issue as some of you, perhaps, but really I've come here today to report and to ask questions in terms of what happened yesterday, because yesterday, under the leadership of Ms. Minna, Ms. Minna, Rob Oliphant, and I had a meeting with the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka.
We discussed with him the potential.... I gave an idea to him that he actually said he liked and would speak to his government about. I want to share that with you and see what we can do to try to further it and actually accomplish the number one goal at this stage, which is to save lives. There are other points, obviously, including reconstruction and a long-lasting peace. We all agree with that and we all know that has to be done, but right now we're just talking about saving lives. I realize that some of you may not think this is realistic, but I think we should try. The idea is as follows.
There's a ceasefire on both sides. The government says the Tamil Tigers are keeping the civilians from leaving. I said to the commissioner, fine, let's assume you're right, so let's do something about it. Send in international persons. It doesn't matter what that's under, but I think Canada should take a leadership role. There's no reason why we can't go back to the Lester Pearson days and try to go in, deal with the Tamil Tigers, liberate as many people as possible from that area, and essentially have them come out.
We will then know, through the involvement of the international persons who are on the ground, whether or not the Tamil Tigers are actually holding the people. If they're not, people can come out. If they are, then we will simply get as many people out as we can. But either way, we'll find out what's going on.
As the people come out, they will come out in the form of a funnel so that the government can search for weapons, take care of the people, give them food and shelter, and make sure they're all right in the short term. Assuming this takes place, either we'll see that the people are being held against their will, or they'll be liberated and out of the area, and the combatants would be left. The people who choose not to leave, obviously, would mainly be combatants. At least, that's the assumption.
He said he liked the idea. He said he would speak to his government. Assume for the moment that it's possible. There's no harm in trying when we're talking about lives.
What I would like to know is what Canada can do and what you'd recommend, whether it's the foreign affairs minister or somebody else taking the initiative of dealing with the United Nations, taking an emergency trip there, and formulating an international plan for how long it would take to do that now, so that if they actually say yes two days from now, we would have something in place, as a leader, to fulfill it.