That is right. The government should forthwith bring forward a bill calling for a ban. I am sure we could get speedy passage of that bill through this House and the Senate to make sure that Canada is playing a leadership role.
We are not the only country to have addressed this. Many countries have done so. For example, Belgium which had a vast stockpile of anti-personnel mines has made a ban. Sixteen countries across the world have taken leadership and it is high time that we as a nation did too.
Apart from the military aspect of land mines, there is also the issue under humanitarian law. There are rules which talk about the proportional or discriminate use of weapons. Land mines violate international humanitarian law on at least four or five tenets. They
are disproportionate, they affect civilians, they are not addressed necessarily to combatants, they continue to affect people long after a war is finished and they are inhumane by any stretch of the imagination.
If we are in agreement with international law, with the tenets that we have signed with the United Nations, then we have to arrive at no other conclusion but the fact that anti-personnel land mines are illegal and must be banned. There are no two ways about it.
If we want to speak in purely selfish terms, there are over two million land mines seeded around the world. Every year we take out 85,000. The cost to make a land mine is between $3 and $10, yet the cost to remove one can be anywhere between $300 and $1,000. We are losing the battle. We cannot keep up with the scourge if we are only removing that many and indiscriminately dumping over two million of them a year. And indiscriminate it is. Mines are tossed out of helicopters and from the backs of trucks. There are machines made in Great Britain, France and the United States which toss literally hundreds of them around.
In the gulf war a staggering 400,000 anti-personnel land mines were laid every single day. What is the cost to remove them? The worldwide cost is over $35 billion. Who can afford that? Not the countries that have them because they are some of the poorest countries in the world. Not the international community because we are all labouring under huge debts and deficits which we simply do not have the money to pay for.
What happens in the poorest countries of the world with the mines? It prevents these countries from getting back on their feet. Mozambique, Angola, El Salvador, Somalia; the list is endless. These countries will never become self-sufficient, will never be able to stand on their own two feet unless these issues are dealt with forthwith.
Some of my colleagues will speak today about the people who are affected by mines and what happens to them if they are lucky enough to survive the blast. Some of them may be lucky enough to go to a hospital where they will receive proper medical treatment and possible amputation. They then will suffer months if not years of future surgeries. Because the mine fragments are embedded deeply they often get septic. The people become sick and require antibiotics which are not often available. They might need revision surgeries if it is available to them or they die a very painful and horrible death.
We talk about prosthetics. Prosthesis for these people are not readily available. When one is making $15 U.S. a month and the cost for prosthesis is over $125 U.S., and children will use over 20 of these in their life, one can see that is simply not available.
Those of us who have travelled in the third world, as many members have, know that these people who are affected by mines and are amputation victims live a life in the lowest possible social strata in their society. They are in effect outcasts in a world of poverty. They often crawl on the ground using the remnants of rubber tires on their knees and beg. The families cannot take care of them and they can hardly take care of themselves. It is clearly inhumane.
Therefore, it completely violates any of the tenets of humanitarian law under which we are supposed to live.
Canada has a great opportunity. We have taken a leadership role in many other areas in the past. During the times of Pearsonian diplomacy we demonstrated that we can take a leadership role to strive for peace and understanding among people. We have demonstrated a leadership role in humanitarian aspects. We have Louise Arbour who is the head of the war crimes tribunals in the Hague. Canada has a pre-eminent role in diplomacy and in foreign policy.
I would ask that the government look at this issue and bring in a bill that will have a domestic ban on anti-personnel land mines. If we can have a domestic bill on these devices then clearly we can go to the international community and talk with a great deal of personal conviction and credibility. We can tell other countries that it is in the best interest of the poorest countries and the poorest people of the world, indeed all of us, to ban these devices. They must be put on the same level as chemical weapons, biological weapons and lasers that are designed to blind people. All of these weapons have absolutely no place in warfare in the 20th century.
So-called military experts will say that there are rules that govern mines. They have mapped them out and they know where they are. However, the facts of the matter are that is completely not true. Although we may try to do that, guerrillas can go in and move the mines around. Weather patterns shift the mines around. We do not know where they are. Guerrillas can take mines as they go through a mine field and use those mines to damage and destroy that which they are supposed to protect. They can also be used against the parties that they are supposed to protect. There is no use for these devices now and they must be banned.
Strangely, although the military is the primary objector to calling for a ban on these devices, the primary use is by non-military combatants, non-conventional combatants or guerrillas. They are the ones who use these discriminately and they are the ones who do not adhere to common practices of war. We all know there are really no rules in war.
Some people have said that if we call for a ban on these devices not everybody is going to adhere to it. That is very true, but by banning these substances we will be able to arrest the epidemic of the distribution of these devices so we can at least lower the numbers that are being laid. As I mentioned before, if one is laying
two million mines a year and taking 85,000 out we have a losing proposition and they must be removed.
These mines are not used for military purposes. They are primarily used in a inhumane fashion to terrorize the civilian population. Many are designed to target a civilian population by putting them along the pathways to watering holes. The military do not do that. They know how to deal with mines. This practice is meant to terrorize the civilians.
I would like to congratulate a number of groups in Canada which have worked extraordinarily hard on this issue. Mines Action Canada, the International Committee of the Red Cross, just to name a few, along with many Canadians from coast to coast have tried to bring the issue to the forefront of international consciousness.
I would ask that the government follow the desires and wishes of the majority of Canadians and ban a device which is so heinous it is beyond our comprehension unless we have dealt with or heaven forbid, been affected by land mines or anti-personnel devices.
I will stop there. Based on what I have said today, I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to make my private member's bill votable.