Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House to say that the Bloc Quebecois will support the motion by the member for Red Deer in which the member wants Parliament to play a greater role in the deployment of Canadian soldiers abroad.
The hon. member for Red Deer and I have, on a number of occasions, during the deliberations of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed concern over the process used to send contingents of soldiers abroad to serve in peacekeeping operations under the aegis of the UN or NATO. We feel this process should be more democratic and involve elected representatives to a greater extent than in the past in the important decisions governments make and are asked to make increasingly.
The number of these missions is increasing significantly and requires today's armies, including the Canadian army, to play a major role in maintaining international peace and security.
I think the revolution mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs is far from over. While it is true that, since 1993, there have been debates in this House and in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on the issue of sending troops abroad, they have been held either in this House or in committee.
Those debates have had little impact on public opinion. They include the recent debate on renewing the mandate of the Canadian forces within SFOR, in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs followed by his colleague, the Minister of National Defence, spoke to a nearly empty House.
It is time to complete this reform. I think the motion by the member for Red Deer today is very constructive in this regard.
The member added a few words of explanation concerning the new three-stage process he is proposing in his motion, which provides that members of this House be adequately informed of the issues and intentions of the government and of the defence and foreign affairs ministers; that a real debate take place between members of all parties in this House; and that this House may express an opinion, this question remaining a matter of prerogative.
I would like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who gave us a crash course of sorts on constitutional law, that this Parliament could change this prerogative. It could even abrogate it, if it wanted to.
One may argue that the motion put forward by the hon. member for Red Deer could have been broader. Indeed, if it so desired, this Parliament could pass legislation, as other countries have, to ensure that parliamentary approval is required before forces can be sent abroad and expenditures made in this respect.
I therefore believe that the proposal of the hon. member for Red Deer is one that meets democratic and transparency requirements, which are not currently met, although we must recognize that there has been more debate on the deployment of Canadian contingents abroad.
We in the Bloc Quebecois have repeatedly been asked to comment on the way decisions have been made or announced, and debates prepared, since Parliament reopened in September, to discuss the deployment of Canadian contingents.
I said in this House before that, in my opinion, such a practice is inconsistent, that it lacks consistency and uniformity. Perhaps this lack of consistency and uniformity is what the parliamentary secretary seeks to preserve in trying to maintain the flexibility that all too often appears to suit the government.
We are therefore in favour of this motion, which I feel makes a very useful contribution to the debate on the democratization of government foreign affairs decisions and important decisions such as those to send contingents abroad.
I would also like to add, since the parliamentary secretary referred to this earlier, that the debate must be broadened to include additional foreign policy issues. The parliamentary secretary implied that the House, through its Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, had been fairly closely associated with the debate over whether to approve the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
This involvement or association is still too minimal. The only reason the issue of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment came to the attention of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and its subcommittee was because there was a leak. The text of the MAI, or the draft agreement, was made public by a non-government organization that pointed out the problems that could ensue if Canada or other countries signed this agreement.
Here, too, and the Bloc Quebecois and your humble servant intend to follow up on this, it will probably be necessary at some point to introduce a motion or a private member's bill requiring the government to obtain the approval of the House before ratifying agreements, a trend that is surfacing in other countries and jurisdictions, such as Australia.
This trend toward involving Parliament in this will grow as the number and importance of international treaties, regulations and peace missions continue to increase.
What the hon. member for Red Deer is doing by tabling this motion is calling upon us to respond to a true democratic shortcoming, one which has the effect of giving the government in the parliamentary system with which we are familiar the power of common law, a power which has without a doubt become excessive, and which it must now give thought to sharing with the House of Commons, with elected representatives. These have the responsibility to be answerable to their fellow citizens for the government's leeway in setting Canada's foreign affairs policy.
When it comes to such vital questions as sending military contingents, the House must not only be consulted, it must also be increasingly integrated into the decision-making process. One day, without a doubt, it will want to take part in the process of deciding whether or not to send contingents.
In conclusion, then, in a world where there will be an increasing use of the armies, the military forces of nations, for maintaining international peace and security, it seems to me increasingly imperative for Parliament to be associated in such decisions as sending contingents abroad. The motion by the hon. member for Red Deer is, therefore, a most praiseworthy initiative, and one that deserves further refinement. It has the support of the Bloc Quebecois.
The hon. member for Red Deer can count on the support of the Bloc Quebecois MPs, and our parliamentary assistants, in further refining this proposal, and getting the government to share our conviction that it is in its best interest to share its responsibility with this Parliament.