Madam Speaker, I value the comments of the hon. member for Toronto Centre—Rosedale. They are always highly intelligent and highly constructive. I would like to pose a few questions and some challenges to him as chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs because he wields significant power on the other side in the area of foreign affairs.
As he correctly and eloquently said, the problem has been inaction. Since 1890 until now we have seen inaction in the face of gross human rights abuses. There are solutions. The solutions require changing the way in which we think of conflict and changing the way in which we deal with conflict. Essentially it boils down to conflict prevention and how we identify the precursors to conflict and the actions necessary to deal with those conflicts. I suggest we start out with non-military intervention, particularly economic intervention.
Will the hon. member, in his capacity as chairman of the committee of foreign affairs, submit to the Minister of Foreign Affairs the following?
First, we should convene like-minded nations in Ottawa to develop a concerted, united effort to deal with conflict prevention in whichever forum we happen to be in, be it the United Nations, OSCE, OAU, OAS or whatever.
Will he work behind the scenes to support the private member's motion I put forth on that idea and Motion No. 477 that I put forth today to have our country present to the United Nations a proposal to indict Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity and to ensure that refugees in the region around Kosovo will have free access to representatives of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and other humanitarian NGOs?