Madam Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the member for Athabasca.
Like my colleagues who preceded me, I am considerably disappointed in the fact that this is just a take note debate. There is no great honour in participating in a charade. We are here to give an aura of respectability to decisions made by cabinet and DND bureaucrats, life and death decisions affecting our Canadian forces.
This is a matter which should not have been about partisan politics, a family matter if you will, where we could put our ideological differences aside, sit down and reason together, make the best decisions possible and vote freely without the lash of the party whips. However, that will not happen.
The Prime Minister and I are about the same age. Neither of us will ever be asked to pick up an Armalite or step into a minefield. If, as usual, old men-and we are mostly men in this place-are to be asked to decide to send young people to die in a foreign land, they should be able to make informed decisions, which is a condition this government is denying those of us on this side of the House.
The briefing we received on November 30 was not very informative. That is putting it rather gently. The unfortunate officer who had to deliver it was not in a position to tell us even approximately how large a force cabinet has decided to commit. He did not know what sorts of troops Canada would be sending, what their function would be, or what the long term objectives would be. Under those circumstances, it hardly seemed worth while to ask him how they would be equipped or where our impoverished military would be able to scrounge effective weaponry on short notice.
In spite of my objections to giving a blank cheque to cabinet on this matter, I am not an isolationist. I believe that for the sake of international political stability as well as for the sake of common
humanity we must at times be our brothers' keepers. In fact for more than a year before the UN finally stopped temporizing and bluffing I strongly advocated tactical air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs to protect the so-called safe havens. The tiny under armed peacekeeping forces were incapable of serious intervention, but the use of superior air power was something that was doable. And it did work, albeit too late for thousands and thousands of civilians.
Now, with the hostilities more or less on hold and with most of the exhausted combatants ready to sign a peace agreement on December 14, I can see some merit in deploying significant well equipped ground forces to in effect keep reminding the three parties that the war is over. The two divisions proposed by NATO should be adequate to do the job, although that is by no means certain.
I believe Canada should participate in something, but what? Canada faces a moral and practical dilemma. We must never again send inadequately equipped troops into harm's way. Our peacekeepers performed magnificently in Bosnia with limited supplies and equipment, some of it obsolete. However, under the more severe rules of engagement proposed for the NATO force, Canadians could end up being cannon fodder. That is not an idle fear. Aside from the fact that Canada cannot properly equip a significant fighting force on short notice, there is no indication that Canada will be significantly involved in the military and political decision making process beyond helping to define the rules of engagement.
If the mission does turn out badly, neither the Minister of National Defence nor the Minister of Foreign Affairs can assure Canadians that our soldiers will not be put at undue risk because of decisions made by other nations. We are no longer a big kid on the block, and we are unlikely to be treated like one within NATO councils. With our deteriorating economy and feeble military capability, we cannot expect to be taken very seriously, notwithstanding our past contributions to UN endeavours.
NATO has indicated that this will be a quick and dirty operation that will only last about 12 months. That sounds reassuring, but what exactly is proposed if when the magic deadline approaches the troops are actively engaging one or more of the belligerent parties? If DND or the Department of Foreign Affairs have the slightest idea, they are not telling anyone. There is no such thing as a timetable for war. Even if DND could cobble together an adequately equipped and militarily significant force right now, we would not have the resources to sustain it for a prolonged and indefinite period.
In summary, Canada's participation in whatever cabinet is proposing to do might save lives and help to maintain world political stability. However, with our military gutted by this and preceding governments, with our top heavy military bureaucracy and our thinly stretched and overused cadre of combat troops, we simply lack the capability to make an effective effort. In military parlance, the tail of the Canadian forces is overdeveloped and the teeth have been neglected. Our plethora of generals and colonels cannot throw their desks at the Serbs.
To suggest that we can continue to be the world's 911 number is false and misleading puffery. My advice to the government is that it be guided by its white paper of December 1994. Sit this one out. Do not get us in over our heads. Do not start something we cannot finish.