Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in support of Bill C-295 presented by my colleague from Fraser Valley East.
The bill has several important features that commend it. The first is that it is a peacekeeping bill. I believe it is important that all Canadians, including their representatives in the House, understand the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking. This is little understood.
The situation in the former Yugoslavia gives us a good example. If I understand it properly, there is a real peacekeeping operation going on in Croatia. This is so because the warring factions there agreed that they wanted peace and agreed to the UN going in to keep it, which the United Nations did under chapter VI, the peacekeeping chapter of the UN charter.
In Bosnia, on the other hand, we do not have a peacekeeping operation there because there was no prior agreement among the Serbs, the Muslims and the Croats to have peace. Therefore, as is very evident, there is no peace to keep. What is going on there is humanitarian assistance under chapter VI of the UN charter. What is needed in Bosnia-Hercegovina is an agreement between the warring factions that there be peace, or we need a declaration with follow up actions by the United Nations that peacemaking is required under chapter VII of the charter. We need one or the other to happen there and we have neither.
Canada's help to Rwanda, if we take another example, was one of humanitarian aid: the provision of medical assistance, food, water and communications under chapter VI, which is the peacekeeping chapter.
Let us look at our activity in Somalia. This came under both chapters VII and VI of the UN charter. From January to June of 1993 members may remember seeing pictures of Somalian warlords roaring around the country in vehicles that had machine guns mounted on them. What was required there was a military operation to bring the bandits under control. Canada during that first six months was in Somalia as a peacemaker under chapter VII of the UN charter. Once the situation was under control and some agreement had been reached with the warlords, Canada moved into operating under chapter VI, which is the peacekeeping chapter of the UN charter.
Aside from understanding the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking, the important point to be made is that it has got to be clear in everyone's mind before we get involved in any military operation what kind of an operation it is. Is it clearly peacekeeping or is it not? This lack of clarity has led us to the situation we now have in Bosnia.
It is also important to know what the terms of reference are or what the mandate is before we get involved. Canada has a good example and a bad example of each in our experience in Indochina, in Vietnam. Canada, as part of the International Commission for Supervision and Control, spent nearly 20 years in Indochina along with India and Poland. The problem was that we were ineffective there because the rules governing the ICSC did not allow Canada to tell the world what was going on. We could not unilaterally bring the world's attention to the violations of peace agreements.
After nearly 20 frustrating years we finally learned our lesson in 1973. In that year we responded to the U.S. desire to extricate itself from Vietnam and get its prisoners of war out of North Vietnam. Canada agreed to be one of the four nations that formed the International Commission for Control and Supervision. There was a juxtaposition of the initials ICCS as opposed to the former ICSC.
We went into that commission with what we called an open mouth policy which allowed Canada to make public all violations to the peace, which were for the most part by the Viet Cong. I have described this operation before in this House and do so again because it illustrates a certain amount of savvy on Canada's part. We went into Vietnam, did our job, got the American prisoners of war out and then left the commission within six months without getting bogged down as we did in the previous ICSC or as we did in Cyprus for 29 years.
What Bill C-295 does is bring Canadian peacekeeping missions before Parliament. It is important that we do this. The debate and review that would take place would diminish the chances of our going into a military operation with inadequate terms of reference and without knowing what we are getting into and for how long.
Bill C-295 would not tie the hands of cabinet or the Department of National Defence in reacting swiftly where military intervention was required. It would simply ensure that things were properly considered and that the Canadian people were involved in the decision making process through their parliamentary representatives here assembled.
Several weeks ago I was in Hungary and I discovered in that rather new democracy that they are very interested in civilian control over the military. What I found is that their Parliament has more control today over their troops than Canada has over its own. Even one Hungarian soldier may not cross the frontiers of that country without parliamentary approval. That is not so in good old democratic Canada.
Canadians take pride in the fact that we have been leaders in the international community in peacekeeping operations and particularly in the United Nations sponsored ones. We take pride in the professionalism and compassion shown by our troops. This applies to Somalia as much as it does anywhere else. We have heard the negative stories out of Somalia and there is no excusing those transgressions but there has been precious little publicity given to the good works of the men of the airborne regiment in that unfortunate land.
Our men in uniform are a cross section of the population of Canada. They act humanely and compassionately. We have heard far too little about the help our troops gave to the Somalians from restoring order to medical assistance, food, shelter, schooling and so on. I really do wish the news media would bring out this aspect of the airborne regiment's performance. Perhaps the Somalia commission of inquiry under Justice Létourneau, which continues hearings today, will be instrumental in telling the story about what went right as well as what went wrong.
In any event, our experience over the years, good and bad, in peacekeeping and peacemaking in Croatia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, the gulf war, the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Suez, Kashmir, the Congo, Vietnam, Korea and other operations should give us pause as Canadians to think about what we have done in the past and what we will do in the future.
We should not take such pride in our past participation that we join in all such operations without due consideration. I suspect that there was an element of that in our entry into the former Yugoslavia. Bill C-295 would enhance our decision making process and I heartily commend it.