Madam Speaker, on September 21 of this year a terrible earthquake struck the island of Taiwan. That earthquake left more than 10,000 people either killed or injured and over 100,000 people homeless.
Immediately following the earthquake many countries sent rescue teams to assist in the process of search and rescue. Those countries included Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Japan, Singapore, Israel and many others. Sadly, Canada was not one of those countries that responded with a search and rescue team.
We actually have an outstanding search and rescue team in Canada. It is based in Vancouver, the Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue Team. The Government of Canada did not see fit to send that team to Taiwan to assist in the rescue process.
In addition, the Government of China interfered in an outrageous way with the provision of humanitarian aid to the people of Taiwan at this very difficult time. It interfered in a number of ways. It rejected the request of the Russian rescue team to enter Chinese airspace, which resulted in a lengthy delay of some eight to twelve hours. It insisted that all relief had to be channelled through the International Red Cross of China. Finally, in a very insulting way, the Government of China thanked the world community on behalf of Taiwan for the very generous response that many countries had made. This was an unacceptable insult to the people of Taiwan and indeed to the Government of Taiwan.
Not only the Taiwanese Canadian community but many others were outraged at the failure of our government to respond. The Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society, for example, sent a very strongly worded letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs stating on behalf of the society its great disappointment and anger at the failure of the Canadian government to put the value of human lives and dignity above relations with the Government of China, particularly trade relations.
I want to note as well that when I raised this question in the House of Commons on October 18 the Minister for International Co-operation stated that aid to Taiwan was not affected at all by China. That statement is totally false. In fact, as I have demonstrated already, China did blatantly interfere.
I am calling today on the Government of Canada to acknowledge that our search and rescue team should have been sent at that time to ensure this mistake is never repeated, to call on the Chinese government to stop its interference in circumstances such as this, and to review more generally our policy with respect to Taiwan's participation internationally.
Taiwan has applied to join the World Health Organization and yet I have received a letter from our Minister of Foreign Affairs stating that only if China agrees, only if Beijing agrees, would Canada be prepared to support Taiwan's involvement in the World Health Organization.
My colleague from Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre and my colleagues generally from the New Democratic caucus have called on the Government of Canada to facilitate Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization. We support full participation, but at the very least Taiwan should be permitted to participate as observers initially in that organization.
I urge the government to show leadership to recognize Taiwan within the World Health Organization, to ensure that the search and rescue team of Canada is dispatched in the future and finally to show far more leadership in recognizing—