Madam Speaker, in listening to the debate, the member forgot to even remember a recent happening in the world when the world thanked Canada as a people for asserting our collective conscience once more.
Our Prime Minister, through his leadership moved the United Nations to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Zaire. We should continue to remember that, for the essence of human rights is about the integrity of any one person which if violated destroys the essence of our humanity and the soul of any nation. When the Prime Minister took that action, we should not lose sight of that very caring and creative leadership. It is fitting to be able to comment on this on such a special day of debate devoted to human rights.
An ancient Chinese proverb said: "A journey of 1,000 miles must begin with a single step". The first step in the journey to make human rights the acid test of any civilization was taken when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. Nearly 50 years ago, on December 10, the conscience of mankind said never again: never again to the disregard and contempt for human rights which resulted in the Buchenwalds of that time; never again to all the death camps and the dictators who marched people into slavery; never again to all those barbarous acts which provoked and killed an entire wartime generation.
When the Prime Minister took that step, the member from the Reform Party should have taken pride in that step. The men and women of that time took the first step in Paris knowing full well that the journey ahead of them was long and full of danger. In taking that first step, the assembly of citizens of the world, men and women, turned a corner in the course of world history. Henceforth there shall be a world in which human beings will have freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
Today, in 1996, when we look back to the idealism of those early defenders of human rights we see that the record is very mixed indeed. I would like to call hon. member's attention to the international tribunals which have been frustrated in their attempts to prosecute those same dictators who, at a different time, had marched Bosnians, Haitians, Somalians and Rwandans into times of barbarisms unmatched in human history.
We must remember the leadership taken by the Prime Minister. On this day we look at all the violence of unrestrained ethnic and racial conflict across the planet. We look at the unconscionable social and economic inequities which in our time are growing. However, let me say that the fundamental rights of humanity are not just civil and political rights but critical to these rights are our civilian societies in the mature western democracies.
I agree with the member that human rights have as much to do with the right to medical care as it does to the right to vote. Human rights have as much to do with having a roof over one's head as it does with privacy. Human rights have as much to do with children in poverty as it does with the brave and courageous individuals around the world who fight for freedom in countries where intimidation, fear and oppression are daily realities.
In commenting on this debate, we must look at the question of human rights in this perspective.