Debates of Jan. 25th, 1994

Foreign Affairs

[Ron MacDonald, Liberal, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I echo the comments the member has just made. I want her to clarify whether or not she believes-and I am not saying whether we should have been in there when we were through the UN-that the UN, once we were there, acted in a responsible fashion by the passage of resolutions on which it obviously had no intention. It obviously had no gumption or stomach to follow through on the sanctions or the threat of air strikes if indeed the aggressors in this particular circumstance did not cease and desist with the type of genocide which had been undertaken.

[Val Meredith, Reform, Surrey—White Rock—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond by indicating that I feel the United Nations representing the world community must take a stronger stand in denouncing this type of aggressive behaviour.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today and to congratulate you on your ascension to the position of Deputy Speaker. I look forward to working with you. I also thank members of the government who have given all of us the opportunity to address this very important issue.

As this is my maiden speech I would certainly like to take the opportunity to thank the people of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, my riding, for giving me their confidence on October 25. I commit to them that I will again do my very best to represent them here in Ottawa. This subject is of great importance to the people of my riding because of its long history in defence and peacekeeping with Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt being there and the Princess Patricia Rifles.

I would however like to say that because of the seriousness and gravity of the situation we are speaking about today, I will keep my introduction to the most beautiful riding in Canada to a minimum and rather invite everybody to come there to see it for themselves.

The issue at hand today is Bosnia, a very serious one, and what should be Canada's role in this bloody civil war. I will preface what I am about to say by mentioning that there are no white knights and no black knights in this situation. Rather there are many gray zones. Atrocities have been committed by all sides. However certainly there has been a preponderance on the side of Serbian aggression.

It is important to note that the people of the former Yugoslavia did in fact live together quite nicely up until the beginning of this century. After World War I and with the collapse of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires the Serbians, Croats and Muslims were fused together to form what we have come to know as Yugoslavia. There was little rancour beforehand. However ethnic tensions mounted because one group, the Serbians, were given preferential treatment to the expense of the other ethnic groups there. I hope this subject I have just mentioned is not lost on the Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

This culminated in World War II as ethnic tensions mounted with the slaughter of over two million Croats and Serbians at each other's hands, a number I might add that far exceeds the number of people who were killed at the hands of the Nazis. This deepened the hatred between the two groups, widened the rift between them, and set the stage for the carnage we see today in all its horror via CNN. As time goes on and the atrocities pile up on both sides, the rift between the peoples widens and the misunderstanding and hatred deepen. That is a profound tragedy.

Now that I have presented my preface what will our role be in this conflict? Since there is no peace in existence today, as has been said before, there is no peace to keep in the seething caldron of racial hatred. Is there peace to make? I think so but it will only come through diplomatic channels and not with force. To commit our troops with force today would in my estimation banish them to be just another fourth force in this encounter.

Along this line of questioning are air strikes. Should we or should we not employ them? If we use air strikes the impartiality of the peacekeepers would be forever forsaken. This would set us up for two things. First, it would set us up for full-scale reprisals by all sides that would produce a large loss of life both among the United Nations troops and therefore among our own.

It is interesting to note in these conflicts-and I speak from some personal experience-that one group can go ahead and kill its own people to make it look like another group is doing the killing. It is the easiest way to go against the group that is disliked intensely and against which the other is fighting.

Second, what would happen if we engaged in this conflict-and this is very important to understand-is that it would completely neutralized the humanitarian role the United Nations has engaged in so far. While this role has been imperfect it has indeed saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people from death, rape and torture. Thus I do not think that air strikes are an option.

Now we are left with the last option, the humanitarian effort for which we have been given a mandate under the United Nations. At this time I would publicly like to state that it is a role our Canadian men and women have been doing admirably. Often overworked, underarmed and outgunned they have carried out their UN humanitarian role with profound bravery. I would like to extend to them publicly my heartfelt thanks and admiration.

Should we engage in this endeavour? If we pull out it can be fairly certain that other member states will pull out too. Therefore no humanitarian aid effort would go through in this conflict whatsoever. It would set the stage for mass genocide. Hundreds of thousands of people would be killed and there would be an escalating conflict.

It is very important to understand that this whole area is a tinderbox. The escalating conflict would involve other countries such as Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania, Italy and Germany. I do not think Canadian people would tolerate it.

At this time I would like to hearken back to the holocaust memorials we see every year and our response to them. As we view the horrible footage of Nazi atrocities the world commits naively to say never again. Tragically we may say this and believe it but clearly our heads are stuck in the sand for we have allowed the situation to continue in other countries over the years such as Cambodia, Iraq, Burundi, Sudan and Ethiopia, to name just a few. Bosnia represents an opportunity to say never again and to do something about it.

The soldiers are fighting these dirty little civil wars, but the greatest penalty to pay are the penalties that are paid by the civilians. I can say from personal experience that the penalties are paid by the children, the infirm and the aged. Those are the people who are subjected to the brunt of it.

As a physician and surgeon I worked in Africa and treated people who had suffered under a bloody civil war. I can say I have seen the effects of gunshot wounds, people who were chopped up with machetes, victims of torture and gang rape, children and teenagers with their arms and legs blown off, and the death, social destruction and dislocation that tear apart the very fabric of a country often forever. Once we have seen it we are compelled to do something about it. We cannot turn our backs on it.

What I have heard is that our soldiers feel the same way. It was perhaps best put most eloquently by a commander of our United Nations forces who said that there was a tremendous feeling of satisfaction when a young man or young woman came home and was able to say: "I helped keep this peace. I helped save lives. I helped people in distress. I helped people who are much worse off than I am". It raises the morale of individuals and collectively contributes to the well being of Canadian forces at large.

Apart from the purely altruistic reasons of continuing these humanitarian efforts there are some very concrete reasons why we should get involved in this venture. By having a leadership role in these multinational peacekeeping efforts, Canada raises its profile, strengthens its positions and gives us leverage across a broad range of diplomatic endeavours.

My philosophy is that we should get involved in these efforts earlier. In that way we can often obviate these situations, not always but sometimes. Bosnia is a case in point. The writing was on the wall in 1987.

I would summarize by suggesting the following. First, we should continue to provide humanitarian aid and not pull out of this endeavour. Remember we are there for the innocent civilians and not the combatants. This is another important point to remember. Many of the fighters and their leaders would like us to be out of this conflict so they can continue to increase the pace of the battle, increase the brutality and the killings. If we ask the civilians whether they want us there, they will tell us yes they do because we are often the difference between life and death for them.

Second, do not use air strikes unless we need to protect our own troops.

Third, we need to strengthen the sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including the freezing of state assets and additional trade restrictions. I would go so far as to say complete isolation of the republic, but I would also engage in trade embargoes and sanctions against any other state that refuses to enter into these peace talks in a legitimate and determined fashion. Bring them to the table.

Fourth, penalize countries which break the embargo that exists with economic and financial penalties. They are being broken now. I suggest we get on them collectively and do something about it.

Fifth, continue with diplomatic efforts and let us play diplomatic hardball with these people with the aforementioned sanctions. I would go so far as threatening them with freezing their assets long after this resolution comes about, if they do not come to the table now.

Sixth, I would demand immediate guarantees for the safe movement of humanitarian aid by UN forces throughout Bosnia.

Seventh, create more safe zones where appropriate.

Eighth, continue with the war crimes tribunal under UN auspices which would hold accountable those individuals responsible for the atrocities that we have seen. I feel that the credibility of international humanitarian law demands a successful conclusion to this endeavour, for if we do not do it the failure of this process will exist. If we do continue, it will act as a deterrent in the future.

Finally, I would strongly suggest to the government and in fact plead with it to continue our humanitarian involvement under the UN auspices for the reasons that I have mentioned before. In fact I can probably summarize by saying if you do not do it now, you pay me now or you pay me later. That is what is going to happen.

I would like to make a personal plea for two brief things in which I think Canada should take a leadership role. First, Canada should act in a leadership role in banning the manufacture and distribution of anti-personnel devices. These devices from Hades have but one function and that is to maim and not kill civilians. We have seen them used with horrific results in Cambodia and other countries. Even when these conflicts are resolved the country is hamstrung. The people cannot move anywhere. They cannot move any goods and services because of these anti-personnel devices. They are truly horrific.

My second point ties into what I said before. We need to look in the future for potential conflicts. One I would bring to the attention of everyone is the Republic of South Africa. It is a tinder box and going into its elections in April is a very sensitive time. I would suggest that the United Nations consider bringing in an interim observation force to ensure that the elections go ahead in a fair and unbiased fashion. If these elections are perceived as being unfair and rigged, then it could lead to a bloody civil war.

I believe my time is up and I thank you for you attention, Mr. Speaker.

[Ron MacDonald, Liberal, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, this is what happens when I get down on the list and it is a shorter debate than it really should be.

I want to comment on an excellent speech by the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. I think the personal experience that he has brought to the debate says a lot. A lot of us can get up and make comments about what we think is happening and how we see resolutions. Obviously from his experience in Africa he has seen it firsthand and knows the devastation that is certainly being wrought as we speak in places like Bosnia.

He mentioned a number of very interesting alternatives. I am one of those people who believes that Canada, wherever possible-I underline wherever possible-should continue its humanitarian relief efforts such as peacekeeping in Bosnia. I also believe that there may be a problem in that the United Nations unwittingly may have put our troops at greater risk by having so many resolutions on which they obviously are not going to follow through.

Since the member has come up with some very good recommendations, does he believe that things like greater and enforced sanctions against Serbia and some of the other nation-states to try to bring them to the table should be a prerequisite that is put forward by Canada? This would have to be met by the world body before we would give them basically carte blanche that our peacekeeping troops would continue under their current mandate.

In short, does he think Canada can play a greater role given that we are renowned world peacekeepers? People do want us there. We are serving a very good humanitarian purpose. Should we be able to lever that at the United Nations to try to force it to take some of the actions that the hon. member has just mentioned?

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if we are going to make conditions upon our humanitarian aid efforts then we had better be ready to back them up with some action.

As I said before in my speech, my personal feeling on the matter is that if the stick we are going to use is the withdrawal of our humanitarian aid efforts, I disagree with that. We are obligated to continue with humanitarian aid efforts and not to do that would only involve an ever expanding war in the area with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. I do not think we should use that suggestion as a stick. Rather we should use what leverage we have gained over the years to convince the other

countries involved in this endeavour to side with us in strengthening the sanctions.

For those countries that are not involved in the endeavour, we have trade and other agreements with them that we can use as a stick to make them do what we say in terms of stopping illegal export of arms, fuel and weapons to the warring side. There are alternatives that we need to use but I do not think we should use it as a stick in the UN.

[Jesse Flis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the hon. member for an excellent speech.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am surprised to see two Liberal members in a row speak in response to the speech of the member from the Reform Party, when two members from the Bloc Quebecois had risen.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member is absolutely right. The Chair failed to recognize the member from the Bloc Quebecois before the member from the Liberal Party. I understand the situation clearly. So, I will give the floor very briefly to the parliamentary secretary and then recognize the member from the Bloc Quebecois.

[Jesse Flis, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I draw the attention of everyone in this House to the fact that I have asked the parliamentary Library to do research into this whole topic.

Mr. Vincent Rigby, Political and Social Affairs Division, did put out a paper called "Bosnia-Hercegovina: The International Response". It is available in our parliamentary Library if anyone is interested.

Mr. Rigby mentions that Bosnia has demonstrated that the world's structures are not prepared to deal with the type of violent, ethnic nationalism that is rapidly becoming endemic in the post cold world war. The nation-state may no longer be the basic unit of international politics. Conflict within states rather than between them has become the new threat to international security.

Because of his knowledge, I wonder if the hon. member would comment on that. Is it a new fact that we are dealing with now? Can we look forward to such threats in the future, internal conflicts rather than state-to-state conflicts?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I remind the member, please try to brief as you have someone else waiting to ask you a question as well.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I understand, Mr. Speaker. I thank the member for a very intelligent question. It is a very far-reaching one.

The world, in my estimation, is breaking up into tinier and tinier nation-states. Areas within countries are now defining themselves within the context of a certain ethnic group. That is tragic because they are not practising big T tolerance. That is what is occurring in the world today. We see it in many areas. We see it in Afghanistan, Cambodia. We see it in Bosnia and in fact in South Africa. It is going to happen time and time again.

One of the lessons we have to learn through this is that we are going to be faced with these situations in the future time and time again as areas in countries start breaking down to the smallest sub-groups. We had better have a plan to deal with them.

As I brought up in my speech, we have to get into these situations early and prophylactically. The United Nations did a very good job in Macedonia and has done a very good job in preventing the war from escalating there.

I hope we can collectively address the particular issue that the member mentioned because we are going to have to make a plan. We are going to be faced with it more and more in the future.

[Gilbert Fillion, Bloc, Chicoutimi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you. I hope that you will give me enough time to ask my question.

I listened with great interest to the hon. member's comments concerning Canada's participation in UN peacekeeping missions. Even though I do not have his experience, I share a lot of his concerns regarding the safety of Canadian peacekeepers.

Canadian troops are, of course, going through a difficult time. But their well-known professionalism enables them to overcome these difficulties and accomplish their mission in a very satisfactory fashion. Finally, the very positive results of their humanitarian aid efforts and of their strategic operations to contain the conflict within the current borders have been pointed out on several occasions today.

I would like to remind you that 80 per cent of the members of the 12th Armoured Regiment of Canada and the Mechanized Batallion of the Royal 22e Régiment from Valcartier come from Quebec, including many young people named Bergeron, Bigras, Simard, Gagnon, Dugas and so on from the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. We can all be proud of the excellent job done by our soldiers. In this regard, I would ask the hon. member who spoke before me if he thinks that the withdrawal of troops by Canada, especially if it were done unilaterally, would bring our allies to question the firmness and durability of our commitments?

[An hon. member]

That is beautiful.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think it would tell the rest of the world that our involvement in these conflicts, to some extent, would not be as much as we could have done.

As I said before, if we remove ourselves from this conflict then the other member states that are engaging in the UN protective forces UNPROFOR are also going to move away from it and leave the people tragically to their own devices.

The important point I would like to make, as I said before, is that the people we are talking to tend to be the leaders of the fighting groups and they do not necessarily represent the people on the ground. That is a very important point to remember. The people who are paying the price are the people on the ground, the innocent civilians. We are not talking to them. We are talking to the wrong people, in a sense.

Although the Canadian people and our armed forces have done an admirable job, and nobody can criticize them for the work that they did, even if they do pull out for whatever reason, I think it will be a personal tragedy. The other nation states that do follow us in this endeavour will also tragically pull out too.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I think this is the longest record we will see in this Parliament for questions during a five minute period. I hate to think of how much time has expired.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you first all on your appointment as Deputy Speaker. You are somebody who knows Parliament and its history and who loves the institution. You will bring integrity, good judgment and compassion to your office. I congratulate you.

It is a matter of some sadness to me to speak on this debate. I have had the privilege of lecturing to the University of Belgrade, the Serbian Academy and to the University of Zagreb in earlier happy years when that was one country. It is one ethnic community but the cultures are widely different. Three hundred years under the Austro-Hungarian Empire make the lovely city of Zagreb as it was into an Austrian city with the architecture, the gardens, the parks, whereas Belgrade looks another direction.

The original era perhaps, the political era, was joining these disparate communities together in 1919. It was done by consensus. The Croat and Slovanian leaders of the period feared rightly that without a solution of that sort they would be given over to Italy. The whole Illyrian coast had been promised to Italy under the secret treaties of 1915 if it deserted the German alliance and joined the western powers as it did. So you had a basis for a union that was consummated in one of the Versailles-dependent treaties, the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye which I will have occasion to refer to in a moment.

I do raise the issue though that here I think we have a political problem that, reversing Clausewitz, cannot be resolved by military means.

One of the problems here is that Bosnia-Hercegovina was not a situation ripe for solution by classic peacekeeping methods as devised by Lester Pearson. Peacekeeping is not mentioned as such in the charter. It is a gloss on it. When Mr. Pearson devised the concept it was based firmly on chapter 6 of the charter and not on chapter 7. What has happened basically in the Bosnia-Hercegovina situation is that we have escalated into a peacemaking situation which invokes another section of the charter, chapter 7, which does authorize the recourse to armed force but which the precedents indicate clearly that unless there is a consensus as to the political goals to be achieved by the military intervention then the situation is doomed to failure.

I think the problem for Canada, in some respects a tragedy for our military forces who are not responsible for that-they carry out the orders-is that personnel developed and trained for peacekeeping have been used for peacemaking. They neither have the military equipment available nor the sensitive type of political training that is required to carry out even peacemaking missions today.

In a pathological sense I suppose Somalia is the perfect example of how peacekeeping transforms surreptitiously into peacemaking and fails. I echo the sentiments of the member on the other side who raised the issue of the soldiers on court martial for the carrying out of orders as they saw it in Somalia when clearly the political intelligence was lacking.

We have to consider in terms of peacemaking and peacekeeping, the two which are now joined together, the roles and missions Canada is capable of performing. One thing that is very clear is that it is quite impossible to be represented in too many places at one time.

If we are going to be in Somalia and in Cyprus, we cannot be in Bosnia-Hercegovina and do the job rightly. So one of the things our committee on military affairs will have to consider is a more prudent economy in disposition of our forces and deciding the priority areas. This is something that in a period of budgetary restraint has to be considered very seriously.

My main thesis though is that Bosnia-Hercegovina represents an attempt to resolve by military means something that should have been resolved by political means. There was a time when Yugoslavia was breaking up. The problem of state succession in eastern Europe should have been foreseen and provided for in advance but was not any more than one had provided for the succession with the collapse of the Soviet empire and the

movement to a more liberal Russia. It was not foreseen. It was not provided for.

What one has had, and this explains the muddiness of the decisions from the United Nations as carried out by the main powers that must assume the responsibility for them, is a division of attitude among western foreign ministries. In fact, looking back one is reminded of divisions between western foreign ministries at the time of the Russo-Turkish war in 1877-78, at the time of the two Balkan wars, at the time indeed of World War I. You see the divisions between the Quai d'Orsay and the Wilhelmstrasse of those periods replicated in a milder form perhaps but still in the consequence it is the same in divisions as to the policy to be applied in Bosnia-Hercegovina. We are in the middle of that and that is a problem.

There have been criticisms made of one of the European foreign ministries that it precipitated the problem by premature recognition of post-succession Yugoslav states Slovenia and Croatia. I do not accept that criticism in relation to Slovenia and Croatia. They did have a separate historical existence as units of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Their frontiers are reasonably clearly defined under the doctrine of uti possidetis which is recognized in international law.

One has many more concerns about Bosnia-Hercegovina which did not really exist until 1878 and which always has had a high element of artificiality about it. I think it was an error to recognize Bosnia-Hercegovina and to admit it to the United Nations above all without taking the trouble to define what status it should have, what its frontiers would be, what its relations with its neighbours should be. I think this does come within the category of premature recognition and the political consequences with this.

The United Nations efforts through the Vance-Owen plan, noble but politically and may one say constitutionally and legally very naive predictably would end in failure.

I would wonder why our government committing forces to Bosnia-Hercegovina did not perhaps raise these issues of the necessity of a political settlement. Is the time for diplomacy past? Not in the least. It has not really been tried. Yugoslavia was put together in 1919 as a consensual union of the kingdom as it was called of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by an international conference of which Canada was a part. We signed the treaty of St. Germain. It was our second international act and we are legal party to it.

I suggested in an earlier pre-parliamentary capacity as a private citizen, as an expert witness deposing before the United States Congress committee on foreign affairs, the House of Representatives, that the machinery of the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye be revived. It is a still extant treaty. One needed a global view of the Balkans. One cannot isolate Bosnia-Hercegovina from the fate of other areas, including the former Yugoslav republic that calls itself Macedonia but perhaps should be called the republic of Skopje.

Peace in the Balkans as a whole is dependent on rational solutions in this area as in any other area. The failure was to recognize that post-succession Yugoslavia required a larger political consensus than Bosnia alone before you could safely and decently send military forces into it.

Therefore, I would have some criticism for our own governments in going in too enthusiastically and not asking the questions that European foreign ministries should have asked: Where they wanted to go and what their purpose was and which are present certainly in other fora such as the CSCE, NATO and the European community.

It is not too late for a Canadian initiative maintaining our forces in Yugoslavia and Bosnia until the limit but saying: "Look, a political settlement should come". Is it ripe? There is a time when parties to a conflict wear themselves out. Exhaustion takes over and that is when diplomacy takes over. There are some indications that that could be near.

In any case simply to maintain forces without pushing for a larger political solution, without telling the European Community countries: "Look, you have to get your act together. You have to give some signals of what you want to do". We cannot solve the Bosnia problem without solving the problem in Skopje, without guaranteeing the security of territorial frontiers without the Balkans. If we do not do this, we are back to 1878 and 1913-14. Santayana said that if you do not study history, then you make all the errors again. What is emerging is a sorry exercise in international diplomacy.

I think the big Canadian exercise is steering back to the United Nations the necessity for a larger political consensus, a larger conference of which if we follow the treaty of St. Germain route, we will be a part and we can speak out on this.

I do not think we can solve Bosnia without solving the other problems. Is it to be partitioned? If it is to be partitioned the frontiers will have to be defined. The treaty of St. Germain provides for the compulsory jurisdiction of the international court in these matters. It has the advantage in frontier definition of making an ally of time.

Peace is necessary. We have a basis for a settlement that will be viable and it is better then than casting blame on military forces. I think the military forces are not to blame and we have performed well.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra on his excellent presentation. If we had heard

such an analysis before intervening in the former Yugoslavia, our approach might have been better planned.

However, the same cannot be said of our Prime Minister who, during his trip to Europe, made public comments about the advisability of withdrawing our troops from Europe. At the local level, in ridings like mine where some 15 young servicemen and women are participating in the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia, his statement made people hope for a swifter return of their sons and daughters but fear for their safety. On the national and international level, it prompted everyone to question the firmness of the Canadian position.

In my opinion, that move marked a departure from the Canadian diplomatic tradition, which helped create Canada's image as a peacekeeping nation. That kind of gesture would also prevent us from learning lessons from the Yugoslavian crisis in order to better react to such conflicts in the future.

I think we should search for comprehensive solutions like those put forward by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra. I may even suggest a few myself, such as the creation of a multinational force that could deal with that kind of situation in a permanent fashion with a crisis centre, thus avoiding a piecemeal approach.

Many of the soldiers deployed overseas in these situations are members of the reserves. The Senate committee on foreign affairs studying the issue was wondering whether the training given to reservists, which tends to focus on offensive actions, qualifies them to intervene in such operations.

It is important, perhaps strategically, for Canada to establish a mission specialized in logistics, dealing especially with transportation, equipment, everything that facilitates the military operation itself. It is in fact an area where we have acquired considerable expertise.

I also learned in today's debate that the Minister of Foreign Affairs regularly tables clear and detailed reports on our involvement in international missions. That seems very appropriate to me.

Finally, as the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra showed us in his presentation, we must educate our soldiers about the history, culture and traditions of the countries where they must intervene. The peacekeepers deployed in Somalia, not necessarily the Canadians, were clearly in need of such training. It is important for our peacekeepers to know what they are getting into.

Those were the comments I wished to make on the speech delivered by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra. I would have liked him to elaborate a bit further on the kind of solution that could be applied in the former Yugoslavia with its complex ethnic mix. If possible, I would like him to tell us the kind of solution he envisions.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, those are excellent suggestions.

The multinational force is closer to the letter of the charter, section 43, chapter 7. Unfortunately, this excellent suggestion is not often followed by the United Nations.

Clearly, political training for our soldiers should be recommended to the Minister of National Defence. It is the lack of political sophistication that really hampered their effectiveness. It would be an excellent suggestion to make to our defence minister.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as you will probably know, Bosnia was a beautiful part of the world, rich with culture, endowed with natural resources, producer of excellent wines, abundant with historical sights, the meeting place of Christian and Muslim architecture where minarets and church towers punctuated the skyline of cities, towns and villages.

Today that Bosnia no longer exists. Its civilian population lives in terror, famine and mourning.

Today in this Chamber we have been asked by the government to think about Canada's role as a peacekeeper and in particular about Canada's role in Bosnia. Here are my thoughts on our role in Bosnia.

It seems to me that the Government of Canada should continue the role of our armed forces in Bosnia while continuing to press for a political solution in Geneva.

Why do I say that? I say it for a number of reasons. Canadian troops in Bosnia these days are providing humanitarian relief. They are offering the most civilized role any military force can provide. They are ensuring survival and life protection, quite in contrast with the conventional role played by the military throughout centuries.

The withdrawal of our Canadian troops from Bosnia would mean in essence abandoning the civilian population to its fate of starvation and possibly death. Our withdrawal would mean that other nations whose troops are part of the United Nations effort in the former Yugoslavia may follow our example if we were to withdraw. Women, children and the elderly would run the risk of being wiped out or becoming another wave of refugees seeking a homeland elsewhere. Withdrawal would mean creating a crisis in adjacent regions. International security could be put in serious danger in the Balkans.

From the relatively contained problem in Bosnia, the danger of spreading is high with very serious security implications and even the possibility of laying the foundations for another world

war conflict. The withdrawal would mean a victory for the bullies who are pursuing the policy of ethnic cleansing, an abhorrent, barbaric, repulsive, blood-chilling concept which the world community must continue to reject and deplore vigorously.

All Canadians abhor the notion of ethnic cleansing. We are strong believers in human rights. We promote human rights at home and abroad at every international forum. In Bosnia the human rights of people who have lived there for centuries have been trampled upon. The Government of Canada should not lead Canada into a retreat but rather continue to protect innocent people in Bosnia through the United Nations and with the help of like-minded nations also involved there.

These are the reasons why I would sincerely hope that the Government of Canada will continue maintaining its present role, the fine and unique role that our troops are performing these days in certain parts of Bosnia.

During this debate a number of arguments have been advanced in favour of withdrawal. I will mention a few but they are not very compelling. Some have said: "Oh well, this is a civil war. There is no reason for any of us to be there". This is an ethnic war. Bosnia as a state, as a cohesive society, hardly exists any more.

Then there are those who have said that the situation has reached a point where air attacks are the only answer. However, what happens after the air strike? What does the world community do after it has bombed? Has that been thought through as to the consequences of such a measure which basically would affect the civilian population? We are not talking here of large armies concentrated in visible and easily targeted points. We are talking about very interspersed forces that are very difficult to focus on and reach.

There are also those who have said that this is too large a financial burden. Well, can you imagine Canada saying to the world community, to France, the United Kingdom, the Scandinavians, the Netherlands and others, that we find this role too expensive for Canada, a nation with the reputation that we have of wealth, abundance and the capacity to be generously available to the world community? What a sham that would be.

There are those who have said that we should withdraw our troops from Croatia for six months. What would happen to the Bosnian population during those six months? Has that question been explored?

Then there are those who have said there is no peace to keep.

Evidently that is a point that one has to take into account because we are not at that point yet. Therefore the answer is true. There is no peace to keep at the present time, but there are tens of thousands of lives that can be saved. I rest my case on those considerations.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member who just spoke for his clear and precise position on maintaining the troops now in Bosnia. I share his concerns when he asks if we can simply abandon a civilian population to people who want to carry out ethnic cleansing, as he said.

He talked about civil defence, but I would like to come back to the last part of his speech when he spoke of the financial burden. Yes, some people do wonder if we can still afford such a peace force. There is that strain of opinion, that questioning. In his argument, he did not point out that we could perhaps completely reorganize our armed forces so that a section of them, as the speaker before him said, would be specifically trained to keep peace and also restore peace. For this, perhaps an exhaustive study should be done on all the equipment we are using. Maybe the equipment we use on such missions could be more narrowly focused and specialized since the missions are increasingly difficult. For example, my colleague spoke just now about logistics; maybe we could become logistics specialists and let other countries provide other kinds of support, such as medical support.

For that, perhaps our government and all political parties should sit down around a table and define the positions or needs or specializations for these peace missions. The money saved by specializing could enable us to continue our peace missions without taking more from our fellow citizens. On this point, I would like the hon. member to tell me if he could agree with that line of thinking, and I know that he has followed peace missions for a long time. He is not afraid to say the exact opposite of the Prime Minister about maintaining peace missions. He definitely thinks that cannot be questioned. But perhaps to reassure our fellow citizens, could we consider together the possibility of reducing some of our military expenditures through specialization, as a way to keep our peace missions without raising taxes? I ask his opinion on this.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not an expert in military logistics and expenditures. I am only a politician. I thank the hon. member for Richelieu for his question, but I am not in a position to add anything to what I said before.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since I am addressing this House for the first time outside question period,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the voters of my riding of Témiscamingue for have trusted me enough to send to Ottawa the member who will come to be known as the youngest one elected to serve in this Parliament.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Like several of my colleagues, I too have members of the Canadian forces living in my riding, including some of those presently taking in part in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia. I have listened carefully to the hon. member for Davenport and the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra who spoke before him. Does the member for Davenport agree that we should be more actively involved in conflict resolution at the political level, as his colleague from Vancouver Quadra seemed to indicate, or does he think it would be better for Canada not get involved at that level, but simply to maintain peacekeeping forces in Bosnia?

Basically, what I want to know is should we play a major role in terms of resolving the conflict, beyond military action?

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Témiscamingue for his question. My impression is that Canada already plays a good role, a major role as a nation 27 million strong which is highly respected around the world. I think that the Liberal government will do a good job representing the aspirations and hopes for peace that all Canadians share from coast to coast.