Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from people in Peterborough county, the city of Peterborough and elsewhere, who are still concerned about the situation in Iraq.
They point out that the people of Iraq have suffered untold hardship in the wake of the gulf war, and that whereas ongoing UN sanctions against Iraq, regarded as the most stringent ever imposed by the UN, have devastated the Iraqi economy resulting in the deaths of over one million civilians, including many many children. They point out that these sanctions are not having any effect on the regime of Saddam Hussein himself.
The petitioners therefore call upon parliament to appeal strongly to the U.S. and Britain to cease all military operations against Iraq and call for serious peace negotiations, and further, to stop the suffering and death of Iraqi people that, excluding an embargo on military material, all other sanctions be lifted.
Further, they urge that Canada vastly increase its efforts in providing food, medicine and infrastructure reconstruction for the people in Iraq.