Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Burlington.
I am very pleased to be able to speak on this legislation before the House today. It will enable Canada to fulfil its obligations under the international convention banning land mines.
As members of this House know, over 100 countries will come to Ottawa on December 3 to participate at the Treaty Signing Conference and Mine Action Forum. This event will bring to a close the Ottawa process which was initiated last year by the Minister of Foreign Affairs after the United Nations sponsored conference on disarmament talks in Geneva bogged down.
This legislation, which is entitled the anti-personnel mines convention implementation act, is of course necessary in order to give the full force of law to Canada's political and diplomatic obligations as a signatory to the convention. I certainly hope that other signatories to the treaty act with the same speed and resolve that we in this Parliament have demonstrated in ratifying this treaty.
On behalf of the residents of my riding of Nepean—Carleton, I would also like to once again offer my personal congratulations to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the tremendous personal effort he put into this initiative. He has made all of Canada proud. His efforts are very much in keeping with the finest traditions of Canadian diplomacy.
When Canadians think of our diplomatic achievements, they think about Lester Pearson, the Suez crisis and peacekeeping. We can add to that list the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the land mines treaty. Great credit is of course also due to the hundreds of NGOs, international organizations led by American activist Jody Williams and supported by others like the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Together a very important humanitarian goal has been achieved.
We have all heard about the statistics on land mines. There are an estimated 100 million mines in the ground in 70 countries around the globe. Every 20 minutes a person is maimed or killed by an anti-personnel mine. For every mine taken out of the ground, 20 new mines are planted. Fully 80% of the casualties are innocent civilians, a large portion are children and women. They live in countries like Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mozambique, Somalia and Vietnam. Long after the wars for which the land mines have been sown have ended, the legacy of the land mine lives on with random and indiscriminate violence causing death and serious injury.
On the North American continent we are very fortunate indeed not to have to live with the constant threat of land mines as we go about our daily lives. Others are not so lucky.
Seven years ago I travelled to Zimbabwe in southern Africa as part of a CIDA sponsored delegation. One aspect of our visit involved a trip to a refugee camp on the Mozambique border called Tongagora. What I saw there in three and a half hours left me with an unforgettable image of what life is like for many people less fortunate than we are.
For over 40,000 refugees from the war in Mozambique, many attempting to overcome the effects of malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoea and other diseases, this camp was their home. Over half the population of the camp were children. Many showed the physical scars of war, including amputated limbs as well as other disfiguring wounds.
The sight of one child in particular seared an image on my brain which I will never forget. Like all the children in the camp, this young fellow was clothed in rags. He was probably about 11 or 12 years old and walked with a makeshift crutch to support himself because one of his legs was amputated at the knee. One-half of his jaw on the right side looked as if it had been blown away. When I looked at that child from a comfortable seat on a bus as we were leaving the camp, the only thing I could think of was the fact that he would never enjoy the life that so many of us in this country are blessed with.
Starting life as a refugee is bad enough but having to cope with amputated limbs and serious disfigurement takes an extremely bad situation and makes it dramatically worse. Whether he suffered his injuries from a land mine is something I will never know, but it is clear that the land mines were responsible for many of the amputated limbs at that camp. Every time I see that young boy's face in my mind's eye, I think of the land mines and the incalculable damage done to innocents. As unfortunate as that boy was, many land mine victims in Mozambique never made it to a refugee camp. Some simply could not make the long journey to safety and others bled to death at or close to the land mine that they had detonated.
The effect of land mines goes beyond the physical damage that is done. Also of concern is the profound psychological damage that accompanies living with land mines. A series of letters which appeared in last Saturday's Globe and Mail from young Bosnians about the menace of land mines speaks eloquently of their effect on young minds.
One young man, Admir Mujkic, a grade 12 student in east Tuzla wrote “Spring will come soon. Warm nights full of temptation to go out for a walk. We have had enough of smoke filled cafes, but where to go. Mines are all around us. Our fields, meadows, forests are probably covered with mines. That could probably ruin my life or somebody else's life, youth, beliefs, love. I want to run through flowery fields with my girlfriend. I want to pick the first violet for her, to climb the trees and forests. I want to lie in the grass and watch the sky for hours. I want to dream”.
Another student, Melisa Dzanovica, in grade 7 and also from Tuzla, wrote “My friend, do not look at the sky, do not count the stars, do not look at the yellow moon because in a split second it can become bloody. It takes only one wrong step. So lower your head, my friend. Your enemy is in the earth. It has surrounded you with a thick wire. Remember there is something worse than a war. Survive, my friend, the peace”.
There are a number of challenges we face in connection with this treaty. One is to ensure that ratification by the signatories proceeds quickly so that this treaty can become part of international law that stems the manufacture, possession, use and export of land mines. As parliamentarians we must work with our counterparts in other countries to ensure that this happens quickly.
Another challenge is to bring those who will not be signing the treaty, in particular our friends to the south, on as signatories. This would be a major step forward.
It is indeed unfortunate that the United States has decided not to become a signatory to the treaty at this time. As we know, it has cited its defensive situation in South Korea as its rationale for not signing, even though at least one of its own generals, General Norman Schwarzkopf, has said that the United States does not need land mines to defend itself or its allies.
To give credit where credit is due, however, the U.S. has destroyed 1.5 million land mines and has promised to destroy another 1.5 million in the short term. It has also vowed to increase its already sizeable budget for de-mining operations by 25% next year.
This brings me to perhaps the most important challenge that we now face as a global community; that is to move beyond the treaty signing and ratification to the next phase which should be a concerted international effort to get these mines out of the ground. This next phase will make the Ottawa process seem easy by comparison. It will require political will, significant resources as well as up to date technology to ensure that more lives are not lost and more injuries sustained in the de-mining effort.
As Canada has led the Ottawa process and the anti-personnel land mines treaty, so should we lead the process of ridding the world of these horrible weapons. We have some of the best trained personnel in land mine removal among the members of our armed forces and we have some of the most up to date technology.
In the first statement I made in this House I drew attention to two companies in my riding that I am proud to say are working on state of the art land mine removal technologies, Computing Devices of Canada as well as Thomson-CSF.
In the case of Computing Devices of Canada, they are working on a system which combines a variety of land mine detection technologies in one package. Their particular technology will have a system to detect even small amounts of metal. With ground penetrating radar their system will detect the presence of foreign objects in the soil. With an infrared camera it will detect heat flow disturbances in the soil associated with buried land mines. Yet another sensor is capable of detecting nitrogen, a key component of explosives.
The Thomson-CSF technology involves a very sophisticated robotic system with the capability of digging up, removing and disposing of land mines.
I mention this to indicate that the task of ridding the world of over 100 million land mines is a tremendously difficult but not an impossible task.
Great strides are being made with technology which will significantly reduce injuries and deaths related to de-mining activities.
To conclude, I want to say that all Canadians should be proud of this tremendous diplomatic achievement by the minister and the many others who are responsible for having this treaty moved forward.
We have come a long way in the space of one year toward solving a problem that afflicts a large portion of humanity. We must remember that the really tough job lies ahead.
I am confident that with the political determination, the financial resources and the latest technologies Canada can once again take the lead in one of the most important humanitarian issues of our time.