Mr. Speaker, the United Nations emergency force inaugurated the era of modern peacekeeping. Canada has been in the forefront with its patient explorations, its practical ideas, and its pragmatic compromises.
This has been Canada's trademark, and this same power of persuasion and tenacity which has always characterized Canada, sometimes under difficult circumstances, has been manifested in recent days and recent hours, while the government was dealing with this current crisis.
The Canadian forces have provided the United Nations emergency force with the logistical support that is the backbone of any military undertaking. Over the years, this service has become Canada's specialty, a known quantity, a support on which our international friends have been able to depend to insure the necessary stability and continuity of other peacekeeping missions, for other missions were not long in coming.
In the ten years that followed, two other important peacekeeping missions took place, the United Nations operation in the Congo between 1960 and 1964, and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Cyprus starting in 1964.
The operation in the Congo, now Zaire, was particularly difficult and somewhat controversial. Many lives were lost and much money was poured into it. As well, we had to resort to force and to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo. This led eventually to deep divisions between the member states, which threatened the future of the United Nations. There was great danger, and Canadians were responsible for a number of acts of bravery. Two hundred and thirty-four members of the United Nations force lost their lives during this operation.
Canadians again had special skills to bring to bear. Our primary contribution was in the area of signals and communications. It also helped enormously that so many members of the Canadian forces could speak the common Congolese language of French. There was a humanitarian aspect to the mission to which Canadians contributed foodstuffs.
Canada was in the lead in Cyprus, with Secretary of State for External Affairs Paul Martin Senior providing the crucial diplo-
matic impetus to get UN members behind the idea of a peacekeeping force. Canadian troops were on the island 24 hours after the force was authorized. "You will never know what this may have prevented", American President Lyndon Johnson told Mr. Pearson, then our Prime Minister.
There have been moments of discouragement as peacekeeping evolved, warts and all, but as this House's Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence reminded Canadians in 1970: "For Canadians now to lose heart and reduce its interest in peacekeeping would be an abdication of responsibility. No other country could fill the gap thus opened-and the development of effective peacekeeping would be set back with incalculable but certainly disastrous effect". The committee added: "The work of peacekeeping is not glamorous. It is frustrating. It does not inspire gratitude. It does not directly assist narrow Canadian interests. But it is an essential service-and one for which Canada has special qualifications because of her reputation for fairness and because of her technical skills".
Canadians listened to that advice. Canada's commitment toward peace keeping has never faltered. By the end of the Cold War, 80,000 Canadian soldiers had taken part in peacekeeping and it was hard to name a peacekeeping mission under UN or other auspices in which Canada had not played a lead role.
We were the leading world peace keepers, well intentioned, well equipped, well trained. Empirical studies, however, indicate that the funds allocated to peacekeeping were only a tiny fraction of total defence budgets.
At the end of the cold war, peacekeeping expanded and changed dramatically, if we consider the type, form and general nature of these operations. Both Conservatives and Liberals sent 20,000 peacekeepers to the borders of Iraq, to the UN Commission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, the Western Sahara, to Rwanda and Somalia, to Salvador and Haiti, to Cambodia and the Balkans.
At one point in the early 90s, more than 4,000 Canadian peacekeepers were deployed in various parts of the world.
During those years, mandates remained vague. The risks were greater. Inevitably, the risk of controversy, error and abuse had increased, compared with the time when missions were straightforward peacekeeping operations.
But the challenges were also more numerous. Humanitarian aid and the defence of human rights were very likely to be a major factor in these new operations which, in turn, could act as a catalyst for putting in place democratic institutions.
In the former Yugoslavia under General Lewis MacKenzie, Canadians got aid to the besieged capital of Sarajevo and elsewhere. They repaired schools, hospitals, roads and they provided medical care. They gave of their own time to the aged and to the young.
In an even more desperate situation in Rwanda, under Generals Roméo Dallaire and Guy Tousignant the Canadian forces cleared mines, delivered aid, purified water and brought critical medical assistance.
We cannot ignore the assistance so many other Canadians have provided and continue to provide daily to those who need it throughout the world. I am referring to the NGOs and Canadian religious orders in Rwanda who were the first to draw our attention to the crisis which had developed in that country.
General Dallaire said one day he had seen too many bodies, too many tears, too much human suffering and too much destruction in Rwanda to let us, the international community, go about our business without a care in the world.
We clearly need mechanisms in order to be able to react quickly and effectively to international disasters. Examples of typically Canadian initiatives intended to help deal with international crises are the rapid reaction force proposed by the government, which made its way at the UN, and the Disaster Assistance Relief Team, also known as DART.
Over the last few minutes I have attempted to sketch the context in which the government motion under consideration by this House is set: a Canadian peacekeeping and humanitarian experience, expertise and excellence built up over many years and tested in a wide variety of circumstances; a longstanding Canadian commitment to international co-operation which is very much in our interests and deeply embedded in our tradition; a Canadian leadership role in the international community which is more usual than unusual.
And so we come to the obvious conclusion that the world is too small for us to turn our backs on the African continent and all its problems.
I fully support the leadership role assumed by Canada within the international community, as it seeks ways to deal directly and fearlessly with the crisis in Africa.
I would also ask that we intervene in a way that leaves no doubt as to the generosity and firm resolve of this House.