Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was simply going to say that I understand that Canada has done everything it can within its powers, in terms of not flying over our airspace, in terms of human rights issues—all of that. Unfortunately, it really doesn't get at the issue. It's good, but it doesn't get at the core.
The world stood by and watched Rwanda—I use it as an example. We knew what was going on. There was all kinds of rhetoric going on in that country about what they intended to do, but radio programs, broadcasting...the world chose not to listen and to call it genocide. Even while it was happening, it didn't happen; we didn't deal with it.
During the Second World War, that was a genocide too; the holocaust is the same thing. You can name it the holocaust or you can name it genocide. The western world knew what was going on there and chose to ignore it.
We're looking at Darfur, but how long has it taken us to deal with Darfur, even? And only now are we beginning. The reality is that when countries start saying things such as “Israel is an illegal state”, or “It's evil and needs to be abolished” or “eradicated from the face of the map”, that incites genocide.
There may not be in the near future the right stars aligned so it actually can happen, or there might be, but the world can't allow for those stars to align and the world needs to deal with them.
The world usually talks through the United Nations as a united body, to say to Iran: “You can't do that. It won't be tolerated. You need to find a different way, if you want to be part of our system, part of the world, or have any respect, or what have you.” But I don't think they care about respect from anyone else at this point, certainly not the current regime.
The other thing is the comment about their not being signatories. I really don't see that as an issue, because Milosevic and his country weren't signatories either but were still prosecuted under the International Criminal Court, when it came to the atrocities in Kosovo and so on. I don't think that being tried under the International Criminal Court is subject to the country's having been a signatory. It's subject to only one rule, and that is, were there human atrocities and/or genocide perpetrated against humanity? That's really the bottom line.
I know that the Americans have not ratified and that there are a number of other countries that have not ratified, but again I go back to the fact that the International Criminal Court is prosecuting people from countries that did not ratify the International Criminal Court's existence.