Madam Chairman, I would like to seek a clarification from the hon. member as to her position. She said categorically: no war on the people of Iraq. She has spoken eloquently of the impact economic sanctions already have had on the people of Iraq. She, like I, has been in a hospital in Baghdad and has seen the emaciated children and so on. She knows that there would be hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi people dying. Whether or not Saddam Hussein would be a victim of this, one does not know. There was a war in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden is still at large. No one knows where he is. We know that one of the untold horrors of that war in Afghanistan was the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. No one talks about those people, as if somehow their lives are not as valuable.
My question for the member from Mississauga is about what her position is with respect to the possibility that there may be a UN resolution supporting military action. We recall what happened in the gulf war. I remember it very well. There were two countries that voted against that war in 1991. One was Cuba. The other was Yemen, on the Security Council. I remember very well that the U.S. ambassador turned to the Yemeni ambassador and said, “That will be the most expensive vote you have ever cast”. The next day the United States cut every penny of the $72 million in aid to Yemen.
The ambassador of Mauritius, another country that sits now on the Security Council, had the audacity to actually question the possibility of a military strike on the people of Iraq. He was recalled by his government, which told him that if he did not shut up the United States would cut off the country's aid.
That is the kind of pressure and intimidation that we see in the Security Council. If that is successful and if the Security Council supports a resolution, my party, I am very proud to say, and our leader Jack Layton, have said that we will not support that war, that Canada should play a different role.
What is the position of the hon. member in those circumstances? Does she stand with thousands and thousands of her constituents in saying no war on the people of Iraq or does she support the position of the member from London earlier who said yes, that in that case it would be no vote, no vote, off we go to war?