Madam Speaker, I rise in the House tonight to speak on this very important issue. Certainly most of us in the House tonight would be doing more pleasant duties; I had no idea when I was elected some six short months ago that we would be here tonight as members of Parliament in the House making such a serious decision on such a serious issue.
Back in January I made my maiden speech on the topic of our role in Bosnia for two reasons. The first one was my personal history which goes back to that part of the world. My heritage is from that area and certainly I have concern for what is going on there.
Second, the important thing that we have not talked about very much in these debates is the history of the area. The history of this area will tell us that for the past 500 years we have had these types of flare-ups. We have had wars. We have had people murdering or massacring each other. There have been no good guys and there have been no bad guys in this particular area. It has been a fact of life that this has been a very volatile area of the world.
I had hoped when I gave that maiden speech back in January that there would not be a need for the type of debate that we hold tonight. Unfortunately that has not been the fact.
My concern tonight really is twofold. First and foremost I am very concerned for the safety of our Canadian people there. We as Canadians have a priority and we must protect. We must not allow some of the things that have gone on in that area to happen to our Canadian troops. Safety has to be a top priority.
Second, my concern is for the innocent victims, the innocent people. We have seen thousands of people who have been victims of this war.
I do not believe that we can ask the United Nations to keep peace in a part of the world where there simply is no peace to keep. I am not a supporter of violence. In fact I hate violence and I hate what it does to innocent people. We have drawn lines in the sand in this part of the world for some two years now. We keep backing up and keep drawing new lines in the sand. I believe we are at a point where we can no longer draw lines in the sand.
Threats and ultimatums simply have not worked. I believe that we must take a firmer stand, but I say this with mixed emotions. As I mentioned before I have relatives in this part of the world and I am obviously very concerned for their safety.
I do not believe we have any other option at this point in time. As a world community I believe that we have the obligation to protect innocent people wherever they are. Thousands of lives have been lost already and tens of thousands more are in immediate direct jeopardy.
About 20 minutes ago I received a letter from one of my constituents that I would like to quote at this time. She states: "As a wife of a peacekeeper who served in Croatia, I know what it is like to worry that my husband may not make it back to me. My husband served as a peacekeeper proudly for both his country and the United Nations. Every patrol he went out on he never knew if it would be his last one. I believe that the Serbians must be forced by whatever means to respect the safe zones established by the United Nations. However, for the sake of our soldiers let us be very clear in what we are doing. This is no longer peacekeeping. The soldiers who now operate under the United Nations umbrella must be given a new, clear enforceable mandate or alternatively, they should be pulled out altogether and NATO should step in.
Dennis just told me a few minutes ago that he would be glad and have no problems throwing his combats on and going back. As his wife, and mother of his child, all I ask is that if you send him or his colleagues over, make his mandate clear and give him the resources and backing to make it back again".
As I mentioned before it is with mixed emotions that I stand in the House tonight. I support the idea of air strikes, not because I want to see punishment inflicted on anyone but because I want to see this horrific war stopped and stopped now.
I believe that the only option we have and the one we must choose is to pull back all Canadians to safe areas and then proceed with any and all efforts required to stop this bloodshed. Then and only then can we talk about peacekeeping and then and only then can our peacekeepers do the job for which we have become known throughout the world.