Mr. Chair, as I said before—and I don't want to engage in repetition—what Canadians are looking to us to do here as parliamentarians is to speak as clearly as possible in support of an immediate ceasefire. I also think what the rest of the world hopes they can hear from Canada is leadership around calling for an immediate ceasefire. Even if one accepts only the narrow terms in which earlier today we heard the foreign affairs minister address the question of whose interests we bear major responsibility for—those of Canadians who want to evacuate Lebanon—then we would have to agree to an immediate ceasefire if we were serious about creating safe passage.
I think Canadians want us to go beyond that, and the world hopes that Canada would want to go beyond that, and recognize that the UN Charter provides that the life of every citizen on Earth is equivalent and of equal importance to the life of every other citizen on Earth. Therefore, a ceasefire is necessary, not just to evacuate Canadians but to ensure that other civilians who are being killed in Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine will be protected as well. That's only going to happen with a ceasefire. We know that; we see that. Everyday the evidence mounts that this is the case.
So yesterday I submitted a motion that basically spoke directly to the need to do this. I absolutely respect the decision the clerk made to say that the full 24-hour notice was necessary before it could come forward to the committee today. But it's clear that we have to come out of this committee meeting today with a ceasefire.
I have to say I'm very reluctant to accept the suggestion that was made here that, no, this is not the opposite of the intention in which we called for an immediate ceasefire. But I think that if members on the government side are speaking honestly, fairly, and directly, and it is their intention to ensure not just that a motion goes through here calling for an immediate ceasefire, but that the call to the government will be followed up with a report from this committee to demand that the government agree to make the call for an immediate ceasefire.... If they won't do so, what needs to follow is that Parliament be recalled to address this crisis of inaction, equivocation, and qualification around calling for an immediate ceasefire.
I've heard from one member that the additional suggested words are not intended to be an equivocation or a qualification, but it is an immediate ceasefire that is called for. The intent of this is for the government to act on that. I would further advocate that we express ourselves on the issue of whether, in the event of the government not responding to the urging of this committee to call for an immediate ceasefire, Parliament be recalled to express its opinion on this issue and to consider what action should follow.