Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois on Motion No. 281 presented by the member for Burnaby-Kingsway.
The aim of the motion essentially is to induce the Canadian government to denounce the American embargo on Cuba in the strongest terms possible at the United Nations, at the OAS and to the American administration directly. It also supports the re-establishment of full aid and bilateral trade ties with Cuba.
It is one thing to express solidarity with the people of Cuba; but it is another matter altogether to interfere in United States' foreign affairs and to support a dictatorship. The member for Burnaby-Kingsway, in an analysis that was hardly more than an expression of emotion and without even having heard our arguments, condemned the position of the Bloc Quebecois. I would ask him, therefore, to take note of the basis for our position. Perhaps he knocked down a door that was open much more than he thought.
The Bloc Quebecois will vote against the motion. Now allow me to set out the reasons behind our position. There are two reasons for our disagreement.
First, we do not believe we should force the United States to change their foreign policy to meet the objectives of Canadian foreign policy, especially because we, ourselves, are particularly jealous of our own sovereignty.
Second, we do not believe the state of human rights in Cuba would permit the re-establishment of bilateral aid with it.
With respect to our first objection, we do not see how the Canadian government could dictate rules of conduct to the American government. Canada has always refused to interfere in the internal politics and diplomatic conduct of foreign states. We do not see why Canada would change matters now, and believe, furthermore, that it would not be in Canada's interest to do so.
If Canada undertook the action proposed by our NDP colleague, we would have to be consistent and adopt a similar attitude toward a multitude of other countries whose foreign policy objectives do not coincide with our own.
In any case, the Canadian government already has enough to do to look after its own foreign affairs, without taking on the task of advising its partners.
In this regard, we would like to mention that a number of questions are currently awaiting action by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, such as the case of Tran Trieu Quan, which I have mentioned on several occasions in the House. The minister should do everything possible to have this Canadian prisoner released from Vietnam rather than attempting in vain to influence American foreign policy.
Moreover, while the American embargo against Cuba is certainly harming that country's economy, Castro's regime is clearly also responsible for the present economic crisis in Cuba. Would Canada not be better advised to attempt to convince Cuban authorities to truly liberalize their economy, rather than attempting to convince American authorities to raise their embargo? Cuba's state run economy carries a very high price and the few liberalization measures implemented recently, such as making the peso convertible, will not be enough to stop the Cuban economy from nose diving.
Cuba needs help in initiating the unavoidable transition to a market economy. The best thing for Canada to do in this regard is to support such reforms through dialogue and trade. Such
action on the part of Canada would be welcome in view of its new foreign policy direction.
Economic reforms must nevertheless be implemented concurrently with political reforms. Dictatorship and the culture of fear must be eliminated in Cuba. Since the Bloc Quebecois strongly opposes the philosophy of trade at any price, human rights in Cuba should be taken into account in shaping our relations with this country. I will return to this later.
That said, we would be against Canada participating in the embargo against Cuba. The Bloc Quebecois expressed its approval when the Canadian government announced its decision to resume aid to this Caribbean state last June.
Let us keep in mind that, following Cuba's involvement in the Angolan conflict in 1978, Canada decided to stop providing aid to, while maintaining diplomatic relations with that country. Now that the cold war is over, the new international order calls for a reorientation of Canada's relations with Cuba. The time has come to end that country's diplomatic and trade isolation. At stake is the very survival of its people, who have been hit extremely hard by Cuba's severe economic crisis. Therefore, it would be quite appropriate to resume our humanitarian aid to that country.
However, this new decision by the Department of Foreign Affairs does not include restoring bilateral aid. The Bloc Quebecois agrees with the government on this. The motion put forward by our colleague from Burnaby-Kingsway calls for restoring bilateral aid. That is another reason why we cannot support it.
The Bloc Quebecois feels that Canada should give priority to partnership-based aid programs and that international co-operation through NGOs is by far the safest and most efficient way to deliver aid to needy countries. This principle should be implemented especially when human rights abuses preclude any sustainable human development effort.
In our dissenting report on the review of Canada's foreign policy, we were very clear on this. The majority of witnesses who appeared before the special standing committee agreed with us.
In this report, we recommended that "Canada discontinue all bilateral aid to states that UN agencies or any other agency recognized by the UN have identified as having committed or been responsible for gross and reliably attested human rights violations".
So far, Cuba has shown no sign of being on the road to democracy and establishing a state based on the rule of law. The Cuban government did however make real progress in some areas, particularly social and economic rights.
But as regards civil and political rights, which are systematically violated by the Cuban regime, there is still serious cause for concern, as evidenced by UN resolutions on the matter as well as constant inquiries about Cuba at the Commission of Human Rights in Geneva.
On this subject, I would like to remind the Canadian government that Cuba is not the only latin-american country to violate human rights and that, in fact, matters are considered to be even worse elsewhere in that area. In January, a slew of NGOs expressed concern to the Canadian government about the situation in Guatemala, Mexico, Columbia and Peru.
At that time, the Canadian government was asked to denounce the human rights violations going on in these countries at the 51st session of the UN Commission of Human Rights in Geneva. It matters more to us, the Bloc Quebecois, that the Canadian government take this kind of action in the case of Cuba rather than condemn the conduct of the U.S. foreign policy.
In a nutshell, it might be a better idea for Canada to provide technical assistance and to do so though NGOs, because Cuba, which is currently facing a major food shortage, really needs humanitarian assistance. Any assistance sent directly to the Cuban government is not likely to serve Canadian official assistance objectives as well as if it were granted to humanitarian and non governmental organizations.
This is basically why the Bloc Quebecois opposes Motion No. 281 and why we will be voting against this motion.