Madam Speaker, I appreciate the unanimous consent of the House to allow me to share my time with the parliamentary secretary. Although my gratitude is somewhat tempered by the enthusiasm with which the member for Red Deer insisted that it be restricted to 10 minutes, I shall certainly do my best to restrain myself in accordance with his wishes and those of the other members of the House.
This treaty and this legislation we are considering today are the culmination of years of efforts of NGOs spearheaded by Jody Williams and her colleagues in the United States who appeared before our committee recently and were so ably seconded by our government, by the foreign affairs minister and by the Prime Minister. It illustrates as other members of the House have said how we can get things done in today's world in spite of the complexity of today's world. With determination, work and above all co-operation we can bring in results.
Members of this House and humanity as a whole owe a great debt of gratitude to the countless thousands of citizens and NGOs in many countries, governments and international organizations that have worked together on this great enterprise that will culminate here in Ottawa next week.
We have heard a great deal about land mines from the minister and others. We have heard there are 110 million of them in the ground in countries like Bosnia, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Afghanistan and Kurdistan where their military usefulness may be questioned but where their presence years after they have been put in is taking a toll from the population, women, children, farmers, anyone. They not only create horrible human tragedies of lives lost in ruin but they also inhibit the development of the economies of those countries. Millions of farmers are unable to continue their productive work and live in poverty because they no longer have access to their fields.
Since 1975 there have been over one million casualties around the globe due to anti-personnel mines. As the minister said, last week four members of the foreign affairs committee and four members of the defence committee visited Bosnia. They had the opportunity of visiting with our troops and seeing firsthand the conditions created by the presence of those small objects which are so easy to put in and so costly and dangerous to remove. They are so ingenious in their destructiveness. They are small, some no larger than a hockey puck and are placed in the ground. Some are attached to trees and can be set off by a trip wire to go off at maximum effect at the level of a head or a chest of an innocent person passing by.
We learned of the difficulty and the danger of removing these horribly effective weapons. We met our troops and talked with them, our troops who risk their lives and limbs on a daily basis performing the delicate and dangerous task of removing them. We think at this time of Corporal Mark Isfeld who gave his life in 1994 in this task.
We visited the United Nations Mine Action Centre and learned that it takes 1,000 men one year to clear 10 square kilometres of mines and that at least 100 square kilometres of mines need to be cleared in Bosnia alone at minimum. As there are only 750 present practitioners of that art, it is estimated that some 30 years or more will be required to clear that unfortunate place of the ravages of war. We need only think of the same situation being replicated in Angola, Afghanistan, Laos and other unfortunate places on this globe.
The conditions we saw illustrated the need for other aspects of the treaty, not just a ban on these items but the need for an effective compliance regime and effective mine clearance operations financed on a global scale. To that must be added the need for aid to the victims if humanity's needs are to be served.
We can take pride in the fact that Canada is contributing to all these important goals in places like Bosnia. Referring to the work of our troops, they are removing mines themselves and training others to do the job as well. They are supporting the United Nations de-mining centre. We are contributing through the World Bank and other financial means to the work of that and other centres throughout the world as we are contributing both on a bilateral and multilateral basis.
We are contributing to the rehabilitation of victims. When we were in Bosnia we had the opportunity of visiting the hospital in Sarajevo. We talked with doctors from Queen's University who were training other medical personnel in how to rehabilitate unfortunate victims. We talked to CIDA experts who are doing the same. We talked to our own troops who were in the process of helping to repaint and clean up hospitals which were damaged by war and which will serve the victims of this terrible tragedy.
We know this work is being done elsewhere throughout the world by CIDA and by other Canadian NGOs that operate courageously in far corners of the world under difficult circumstances.
The legislation will implement the treaty and ensure its terms will be enforced in Canada. This is the second agreement of this kind that the House has had to consider recently, the first treaty being the chemical weapons convention. We saw the need to have a universally credible means of ensuring that an agreement of this kind is put in place, is effective and is enforceable throughout many countries.
It is my belief that this is not the last time the House will be called upon to enact similar legislation. It is my belief that in the world in which we live today we will be called upon more and more to do work of this nature to ensure the world in which we live is a safer and a saner place.
The treaty represents something in general to me as it should to members of the House. What lessons can we reflect upon in relation to the issue as Canadians? What does it tell us about our international role in an increasingly interdependent world? Why is Canada, a country with no land mine problem itself, spearheading what will always be known as the Ottawa process?
Canadians believe in the need for our country to be an active participant in the global community, to make sure our values, in particular those of tolerance and compassion which have grown out of our bicultural and pluralistic society, are carried out into the world. To this end we need to work productively with others, with other countries, international institutions, NGOs and individuals to bring people together in a common cause to better humanity. In that sense the treaty and the legislation represent the Canadian goal.
What better example can we follow in the footsteps of Lester Pearson, John Humphrey, Dr. Norman Bethune and many other Canadians who recognize that to live in this world today we must participate fully in it? When we choose to do that we can achieve incredible results.
In conclusion, I would just like to offer a small comment on the nature of our work today and on what has been accomplished by this treaty.
It seems to me that this treaty and the role Canada has been able to play in its preparation, the diplomatic success it represents, is proof yet again of what Canada can achieve as a strong and united country.
I am sure that most members present will agree with me that our strength internationally and our ability to effect change in the world for the well-being of humanity as shown by this treaty gain from the fact that we are a country united from sea to sea and that we bring our collective national experience to the international scene.
This is therefore another lesson we want to draw from this experience, a lesson that will come up increasingly in the future in this heavily interdependent world, a lesson that can be of benefit to all, to the citizens of Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and other provinces of this magnificent country.
We are taking an important step today. Let us build on it together for the benefit not only of all Canadians but of humanity as well.