Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this debate on the peacekeeping missions Canada has been involved in for many years, as the minister of defence has
just mentioned. For some 50 years now, Canada has taken part in almost every peacekeeping mission it has been asked to join.
As it has always done, the Bloc Quebecois supports the government's humanitarian aid initiative. We recognize the leadership shown by the current government in inviting the international community to help bring an end to the slaughter and resolve the current humanitarian problem at the border between Rwanda and Zaire.
Debates have taken place in this House on earlier peacekeeping missions. Certain discrepancies led to questions and requests for clarification from the Bloc Quebecois, the official opposition. Each time there was a mission-be it in Bosnia or Haiti-we expected Canada would go to the aid of countries facing problems, be they wars, famine or disease. When the government decided to send peacekeepers, we expected the role, mandate and length of the missions would be clearly indicated.
The situation in Zaire is changing quickly. A couple of weeks ago, more than half a million people fled to Zaire and now they are returning to Rwanda. Obviously the planning and preparation of the international mission under Canada's leadership will have to change. Zaire has accepted and confirmed the presence of a Canadian led multinational force, but Rwanda has not. If all the refugees head to Rwanda, negotiations will be necessary.
There has been significant involvement by armed rebels in the military conflict in Rwanda between the Tutsis and the Hutus, which has been spilling over into Zaire and Uganda. As the minister of defence has said, we want to send lightly armed peacekeepers, who will intervene not as a UN force, but as a multinational force approved by the UN with a more or less defined mission.
Western countries like Canada, the United States and France should intervene in the event of humanitarian problems, such as the one in the great lakes region of Africa.
I cannot help but wonder, as some of my hon. colleagues probably wonder, how Canada will be able to cope with the various military forces over there, when the role of our peacekeepers remains to be defined.
We will recall that, several months ago, in Bosnia, Canadian troops were taken hostage by Serbs. This incident held the international community in suspense for several days. It is obvious that the peacekeepers and UNPROFOR as a whole had neither the mandate nor the capacity to protect themselves under such circumstances.
What will happen in Zaire and Rwanda with the rebels and armed militia? On what basis have the Canadian government, National Defence, Foreign Affairs planned how our military are to behave in various situations.
Without bringing back too many bad memories, I think we must bear in mind that there were incidents involving peacekeepers in Rwanda. Belgian troops under the command of a Canadian general were murdered in Rwanda. All too often, in peacekeeping missions such as those in Bosnia, Haiti and now Zaire, the Canadian government sends out Canadian troops with a humanitarian mission. Everyone agrees and realizes that Canada must act along those lines.
In missions as important as these, where the political and military stakes are critically high, it is nevertheless fair enough, in my opinion, to say that preparation is critical. Every soldier and officer participating in such missions must know exactly what is expected of him or her, and they must also be able to protect themselves.
In recent years, the practice has very often been to ignore to some extent the families left behind by deployed troops. The troops themselves know very little about the nature of the mission as they fly out of Canada to trouble spots or other areas where they are supposed to make a significant contribution. They are unsure of how long they will be gone, and have little information regarding the role they are expected to play in support of the local population and how they should behave.
The defence and foreign affairs departments deserve to be criticized for the lack of information they provide. Because of the reputation and generosity of Canadians, they take it upon themselves to help communities clearly experiencing major problems. When it comes to missions of this type, the key players are the troops and the officers who take part in it, those who will be in the theatre of operations. Before they leave, military people often tell their families, their loved ones, and sometimes the media, that their mission is vague, that their role is not well defined. They do not know which weapons they can use if they are surrounded by militia troops or rebels out to capture them. They do not know if they are allowed to defend themselves or if they must once again put up with being humiliated? This is one of the problems experienced by Canadian troops who took part in recent peacekeeping missions.
It shows that the government is once again improvising somewhat. The families of these troops feel it makes no sense to send a son, a husband, a father, a wife, or a sister to such theatres of operations, without knowing what is expected of them.
There have been instances, but hopefully this will no longer be the case, where Canadian troops may have lost their lives because the instructions given to them were not clear. I am thinking of the death of Corporal Gunther and others who took part in such missions as proud members of our armed forces, proud Quebecers and proud Canadians. These people provided humanitarian assis-
tance, but their mission was not properly planned, which resulted in mixed success and, in some cases, in extending our troops' involvement.
It must also be pointed out that Canada has contributed very large numbers of troops to international conflicts over the last three years. Only recently, in 1993-94, Canadian troops in Bosnia numbered almost 2,000. At that time, although Canada had a very large contingent, it did not even have a decision making role in diplomatic exchanges or peace negotiations. You will recall that Canada was not then a member of the contact group and that it had not taken part in the decisions surrounding negotiations to restore peace to Bosnia. There are now almost 750 soldiers in Haiti; there are still just over 1,000 in Bosnia, and the plan is to send another 1,000 to Zaire.
I have discussed this point with a number of soldiers and even with certain officers. The rotation of assignments to peacekeeping missions is leading to a certain fatigue among the troops. Far be it from me to turn the knife in the wound, but in the present context we are only too aware that the army has had its internal problems that, up to a point, can be linked to this accumulation of peacekeeping missions and to the fact that soldiers have always been sent back into the theatre of operations, very often with insufficient time to catch their psychological and even their physical breath. Some have experienced serious family, psychological and other problems.
Once again, I do not think these soldiers are being allowed sufficient recovery time. Although there are almost 65,000 soldiers in the Canadian army, including all ranks and levels, with rare exceptions that portion of the Canadian army used in peacekeeping missions is generally and almost always limited to the ground forces. As for the navy and the air force, their participation in the various missions is much more restricted.
So it is almost always the same land army personnel who are used to help out various nations in the world, one might say, for in the last ten years Canada has been to just about all of the theaters of international conflict on this planet.
I feel that these individuals have reached a degree of overload, which might even explain the problems experienced by the army-more so than by the navy or the air force, although they too have been involved in these humanitarian operations or these conflicts-which are psychologically and physically stressful and demand virtually superhuman efforts, particularly when soldiers must do the same thing over and over again.
I know soldiers who were in Bosnia for six months, then back to Canada for a little less than a year, then back to Bosnia. They then returned to Canada for a little less than a year before being sent to Haiti. As for the Calgary regiment, they have been to Bosnia twice and now it will be Zaire.
If, over a period of barely 36 months, soldiers have to spend, in six-month chunks, more than 12 months in a conflict situation away from their loved ones and from the security of their home environments, I imagine that what can happen is a sort of overloading, an inability to bounce back either psychologically or physically.
I point this out because all Canadians, all Quebecers, and I think all parliamentarians here agree that Canada has a duty to take part in this type of mission and, for once, we salute Canadian leadership in the current situation in Zaire.
We must be aware, however, that our human resources within the armed forces, as well as our financial resources, are in what I would call a precarious condition. Despite the good will and compassion of all parliamentarians, of all members here in this House and of the entire public, we must realize that considering its human and financial resources, Canada cannot afford to be the 911 of the planet. Every time a conflict erupts somewhere, Canada is called and everything is taken care of. Canada is always ready to go.
This is not the first time it was mentioned in debate that Canada should have an established and definitive policy. I even remember that, in a speech he gave at the UN in New York, former Minister of Foreign Affairs André Ouellet mentioned that in the not too distant future, the UN, and I think that is where we are now, should have a permanent force, staffed by various countries, that would intervene in certain conflicts in certain locations.
This would make it possible for all countries, including Canada, to plan for the number of soldiers it could make available, while maintaining sufficient rotation so that individuals who take part in these missions are able to have a family life and engage in some psychological and physical recuperation. At the same time, it would also be possible to budget for this kind of mission.
Unfortunately, in spite of all the good intentions and praiseworthy proposals, it became clear in recent budgets that the government was cutting back severely on humanitarian aid, including medical assistance, food and the like, and had increased the military component in various peacekeeping missions, which produces results.
We may occasionally wonder whether these results are truly positive, but the fact remains that this money will occasionally be used preventively, as many representatives of NGOs providing humanitarian assistance have mentioned, instead of always putting out the fires of a conflict that in many cases will rekindle as soon as the peacekeepers leave the theatre of operations.
In concluding, I must say that the government's initiative has been approved and is supported by all members here in this House, but nevertheless, various factors must be considered and there must
be a certain degree of planning. The government must consider our human resources, meaning our military, who will need certain rest periods, etc. We must establish very strict guidelines on the amount of money we want to invest in these activities instead of budgeting piecemeal and often cutting somewhere else.
Finally, I would like to point out that many people in Quebec and Canada find it hard understand why the government is deploying humanitarian aid when in a number of provinces, people have trouble keeping body and soul together.