Mr. Speaker, Robert Kennedy once said each time a person stands up for an ideal, strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of resistance.
Last year those ripples gathered enormous speed when our Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a challenge to governments around the world to sign, this December in Ottawa, a treaty that unambiguously bans land mines.
Land mines are indiscriminate killers that too often, long past the end of the intrastate conflicts, kill or maim children playing or men and women trying to grow food and gather firewood.
Non-governmental organizations, soldiers, survivors and witnesses have been pushing for years to ban land mines. In December 1997 we will ride that current together. Much work will stand before us to implement the treaty, but December 1997 will be a time of celebration, a time of hope.