Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I did want to start off by responding to Madam Lalonde's comments, first on the question of why we're proceeding now without hearing all the witnesses.
On that side, everybody seems to have conveniently pretended that it was because the witness list was not balanced, for whatever reason. I can't conceive of why members of the opposition didn't send in a list of witnesses. But Mr. Obhrai kindly said that we're quite happy to hear more witnesses later. To hide behind the fact that you still hadn't taken advantage of that invitation to say you weren't happy because you didn't have your witnesses is not a reason to hear from anybody.
Well, I'm sorry, the fault clearly lies with the opposition for failing to identify witnesses first and failing to take up the invitation, in front of this government at this committee, to expand that witness list—an invitation Mr. Obhrai made as we were discussing these matters. For whatever reason, you chose to proceed and debate these issues without having evidence first. So that's the boat we're in, and I think this has to be remembered.
Madam Lalonde poses a very difficult question of how to deal with terrorists. She suggests that Israel's response is, according to Paul Heinbecker, going to breed more terrorism, and therefore you should stand back, stay away, and leave them alone. That's a legitimate perspective.
It happens to be a perspective with which I disagree. It is a legitimate tactic and approach. What do you do? How do you respond to an evil like that, to a list of terrorist organizations that commit attacks against civilians? When we deal with evil forces in the world, the question of how we respond always comes up.
If you think back to World War II, as Hitler rose—and he was an evil—there was a great debate: how do you respond to that evil? For a while, the folks who said that leaving him alone was the best thing to do were in the ascendancy. As they remained dominant, that evil became stronger and stronger. Some in Israel today will say that's exactly what's happened with Hezbollah. They were left alone for years to amass thousands of rockets that now are being unleashed on civilians. The fact that they were left alone is the problem they're responding to.
After dealing with Hitler for a while in World War II, it became evident that ignoring the evil, leaving it alone, wishing it would go away, hoping we would do better if we just ignored and accommodated it a little and tried to understand it—if I may use the phraseology from others—this wasn't the case.
Ultimately, Britain and Canada and, a couple of years later, the United States and others came together and recognized that evil had to be fought. I think and hope everybody agrees in retrospect that this decision to confront the evil was a right one. As I said, it's a legitimate debate to have: whether you ignore the evil and pretend it goes away or respond to it.
Similarly, in World War II we had Stalin and the Soviet Union, and the tyranny and horrors he was unleashing on his population. Essentially there was a decision by the west to leave that alone at the end of World War II. I know Mr. Wrzesnewskyj is here and, being Ukrainian, has lots of relations with people in the Ukraine. Millions died as a consequence of that decision by the west to leave Stalin alone. There were hundreds of millions more who essentially lost their freedom and lived under tyranny for half a century. Was that a right decision or not? It certainly minimized Canadian casualties. Do we say that those millions of lives elsewhere in communist countries under Stalin's tyranny were a worthwhile cost to save our own? I don't know, but once again it's a legitimate debate.
That's the debate we have to deal with right now in talking about terrorist organizations. Do we confront the evil or leave it alone? I know where I sit. I say you confront the evil, as we did with Hitler as that rose too strongly. I think you try to find ways to deal with the terrorist threat. History has shown us that the longer it's ignored, the longer it's left alone, the stronger it becomes, and the greater the threats and the missions that get carried out.
I'd also ask this question. As Canadians, if we were faced with an armed group on our borders that was committed to destroying our country and its population and eliminating them from the face of the Earth, what would our response be, faced with that kind of evil or that kind of threat?
I ask that question and put it in those terms because that's where Israel is. They are facing, in Hezbollah, a terrorist group that is committed to eliminating them from the face of the Earth. You can encourage people to try to understand that and can say that what we should do is try to understand the desire to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. I don't know that I can understand that. I think it's beyond my comprehension.
So I don't think understanding that from Hezbollah is the answer. But it is a legitimate debate: leave them alone and try to understand that, or confront the evil. That's the difficulty Israel faces right now.
Canada has committed, and the United Nations Security Council has persistently said on this issue, that the best thing is for Hezbollah to be disbanded and disarmed. That would be the best, not just for Israel but also for Lebanon. That's essential for the weak State of Lebanon to be able to strengthen, to grow—for that government to strengthen. It's the best way for Lebanon's sovereignty to be respected, and that's certainly what we would like to see happen.
It's a hard question, a legitimate question: what to do when confronted with evil. Do you want to leave the terrorists alone—do you want to leave Hezbollah alone and try to understand them—or do you decide to confront the evil? I'm sympathetic to the position of a country facing an enemy that wants to wipe it off the face of the Earth, that when it's under assault from that enemy, it might want to do something about that evil threat.
As for Canada playing its mediator role, Canada has always had a strong mediator role in the international sphere because we stand for principles and for values. People understand where we're coming from. They understand that we believe in democracy; they understand that we believe in the rule of law; they understand that we believe in human rights; they understand that we believe in freedom and that we stand up for those things uncompromisingly. Those are what Canada's values are, what Canada's values should be, and they do not compromise us. Standing for those values doesn't compromise us from taking on a leadership position.
Everyone looks to the United States to be able to resolve and bring about peace—in fact, they seem to broker most of the agreements in the Middle East on peace—but nobody has any illusions about whether the United States is neutral on these matters. I think they have a very clear stand. Because they have a clear stand, they are the ones consistently turned to to broker peace, through the Camp David agreements, the roadmap to peace, and so on.
There's nothing inconsistent with believing in and standing for something and being a fair, honest broker on the world stage. Those things come hand in hand.
It's what happened in 1956. Let's review it, Canada's role at the birth of United Nations peacekeeping. It arose out of the Suez crisis, and Canada took sides, unequivocally. We took a side: we strongly opposed the military action that had been taking place. We opposed the invasion. We said which side we were on. After saying which side we were on, we were able to take a leadership role and create peacekeeping.
It doesn't matter what the colour of the government is, and it shouldn't matter what the colour of the government is. That was a Liberal government in 1956, a Liberal government following in lockstep with a Republican U.S. President. I don't think anybody said that was a question of Canada simply being a puppet; I don't think we'd say today that Canada was just being a puppet of those Americans. I think Canada was standing for principles it believed in, but because it stood for something, it could also be a fair, honest broker.
I don't think the way to be a fair, honest broker is to cease to have values, to stop believing in things, to stop standing for freedom, democracy and human rights, and the rule of law. I think the surest way not to be taken seriously on the world stage is for Canada to abandon those values.