Thank you very much again.
I'll respond to a couple of the items raised by members of the opposition in the committee.
Firstly, Madam Mourani asked what is our political objective with regard to Lebanon. It's very simple. We want to see a stable, long-term peace in the region. Secondly, we want to see a strong Lebanese government that's sovereign over its entire territory. Thirdly, related to that—and the fact that these events have unfolded underlines why it is so important—we want to see the United Nations resolution calling for the disarming and disbandment of Hezbollah within southern Lebanon implemented. Fourthly, we want to see that a sovereign, democratic Israel is recognized and permitted to exist, which right now Hezbollah is committed to eliminating from the face of the Earth, as we heard.
So if you want to know what our objectives are, those are what they are. You will see that if these had been carried out—if there was a recognition of Israel's right to exist, if Hezbollah disbanded, and if you had a strong Lebanese government in place—none of what has unfolded today would be occurring. If those two resolutions from the United Nations Security Council had been implemented, we wouldn't have this conflict, and we wouldn't have this meeting.
So if you ask what our political objective is, it's to do the same thing as the international community has called for: to achieve that stable peace in Lebanon, to have Hezbollah disarmed, to have Israel's right to exist recognized. To me, that is not an unreasonable objective; it's practical and consistent. We're talking about a Security Council resolution that any one of the five major powers, the veto-wielding powers, could have vetoed, but they didn't. It's a broadly held objective recognized by all. So our objectives are not isolated, they're not narrow, they're objectives shared by most in the international realm.
In discussing it further, Madam Mourani said that we can't resolve conflict without dialogue. The way you resolve conflict is through dialogue. That's just dripped with irony from someone who voted to shut down dialogue today. We're supposed to be an example of how to resolve conflict, and she voted.... She says we do it through dialogue, but God forbid we have dialogue here. God forbid we actually hear from witnesses who have something to offer.
So I found it ironic and inconsistent. You won't see us being inconsistent on this side. Had we heard from witnesses, I think it would have enriched the quality of the debate we would have had. It would have been less partisan. It would have been a more reasoned debate, and one not aimed at scoring political points.
Again we see the desire for political points in this discussion of ceasefire. I think Mr. Warawa from Langley put it very well. We had a call for a ceasefire in this motion, Mr. Alghabra, but I guess you didn't read it. We referenced the G8 declaration. Similarly, the declaration of the parties at the peace talks in Rome called for a ceasefire.
Canada's been clear about that. I don't think there's any ambiguity there. Those two calls have been made, and guess what? There's no ceasefire. That's unfortunate, but it points out the difference between words and real power, the ability to influence things. It takes more than words, and it takes more than grandstanding; it takes a lot of hard work. We hope that hard work and dialogue will happen, and we will work towards that peace. But the hard work has to move towards the political objective I refer to: a stable, long-lasting peace in the area.
The Lebanese government didn't want an armed Hezbollah. They want them out; they want to be able assert sovereignty over their own country. Obviously if that had happened, you wouldn't have the ruins that exist there right now.
I don't think that's funny, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj; I think that's the truth. If Hezbollah were not in place to commit incursions into, and invade, Israel, would there be a conflict right now in Lebanon?
Israel had withdrawn—