Madam Speaker, this is a very serious debate this evening.
I have listened to five speakers, all of whom have spoken without regard for their affiliation to any party. As a Canadian I am very proud to stand tonight and say they have all spoken as Canadians in the best interests of this country. I am very honoured to join that nature of the debate this evening on such a serious subject.
I want to approach this debate from a slightly different perspective. I want to look at what is in our national interest. After all, this is what we are talking about as Canadians.
What is in our national interest in the debate this evening is peace and security in the world and a total abhorrence of the genocide we see in front of us. But for every national aim and every national wish, there has to be a risk.
What is at risk? It is not our reputation as peacekeepers that is at risk. We demonstrated in the Arab-Israeli war in 1967 that we can peacekeep, but we can also leave when people really want to fight. We have created the precedent for doing both in the same operation.
However we do have a risk. It is the close to 2,000 Canadians who are involved in this operation. It has to be very clear to Canadians that in this goal and national aim of peace and security and the abhorrence of genocide, our peacekeepers are at risk.
Having said that I want to look at this operation as one which I suppose could be described as typically escalatory. The question I ask in an operation that takes that trend is: Where does it stop?
We started with a handful of officers and non-commissioned members in September 1991 to support the European Community monitoring mission to cease fire on the borders and to provide humanitarian assistance.
In February 1992 we sent a 1,200 member battalion group. In June 1992 we dispatched part of that battalion group to open the Sarajevo airport. Canadians will remember that; it was a very tense time in this operation. In September 1992 we sent another 1,200 troops.
Well, the history of the 57 ceasefires and the use that the Bosnian Serbs have made of these sham ceasefires add to the escalation we see in front of us. In every escalation there is a quagmire. That is where we are now. We are at a quagmire.
What options are open to us? There are three basic options. In one way or another they have been described here this evening.
The first option is to declare we have lost the battle, that there is no further use for us to remain in the present position doing the present things we are doing. We would get out. The consequence is that it would give a certain signal to the Bosnian Serbs. It would put at risk thousands of civilian lives, most of them Muslims. It would put at risk other Muslim populations in the eastern part of Bosnia that we would be concerned about.
It would also give a signal to other aggressors that may want to do the same thing. The history of genocide and our view as Canadians on this kind of atrocity is very clear. Our actions have always been the same.
The second option is to stay the course of what is happening. I am not sure what good that would do us. We are providing humanitarian aid and suggesting air strikes. Unless something changes from what is happening now, I believe any chance of a peace will be totally bogged down. The government which is Muslim Bosnian, as I see it, will perhaps get the wrong signal and expect that sooner or later we may want to come down on its side. I do not have to tell anybody in the House that our troops were not sent there for that reason. Neither are they equipped to do so.
It would also give the wrong signal to the Serbs that we are going to stay there. They will continue to have their little games of ceasefires, and every time there is a ceasefire they will strengthen their position. This has been the history. Why would we expect anything different?
The third option relates to the option that is now being proposed by this motion and the option that seems to be getting total support in the House this evening, that is to have our troops that are vulnerable put in a safe area and to consider more seriously the use of air strikes.
In considering that option we have to remember that the Secretary-General of the United Nations under UN resolutions 824 and 836 authorized NATO to execute air strikes last Sunday. It has been four days since we have looked at that.
What message are we sending to the Serbs? What are they saying? To balance that, again history will show that air strikes without follow-on action with ground troops sometimes have the effect of strengthening the resolve of those people who are being struck with the air power.
The history of air power in the mountainous country in which we are involved in this operation has not been terribly successful. There are some difficulties with air strikes. They have been successful, but there are difficulties and we have to consider them.
There is another area that has not been discussed in any detail this evening. I want to bring it to the attention of the House. I request that the Minister of Foreign Affairs take into consideration that we have a three-organization naval blockade in the Adriatic Sea: the Western European Union Task Force, the Standing Naval Force Atlantic of which a Canadian commodore just relinquished command on April 14, and the Standing Naval Forces Mediterranean, all under the command of COMNAVSOUTH. We need to look at that to see how it relates to the action that will stem from the discussions that will take place tomorrow.
It is with a certain amount of hesitation, I would have to admit, that I would be in favour of air strikes. It would be on the condition that there would be a summit involving the Russians, all NATO forces and all United Nations forces. Whatever we do in our negotiations tomorrow I know I do not have to remind the House in my presentation this evening that the peacekeepers we have there now are at risk. Any further involvement we may undertake as a result of the action that will be contemplated in the next few days will have to be seen as escalatory. We have to bear that in consideration.