Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the members of the Armenian National Committee who are in the gallery, members of the Turkish community who are here, and all those who are watching this issue so carefully. What we have just seen indicates probably how volatile the issue is. We are talking about a time period from 1915 to 1923. Among all parties and all Canadians we find a great deal of misunderstanding and hostility which shows how volatile the issue is.
In reading the documentation on both sides of the issue, one starts to realize how terrible the word genocide is and the type of killing that can go on over religion, various ethnic mixes and so on. We have listened to some of the history and we could get the same history on either side. I was moved by the severity of the information we can read on the issue.
I would like to talk about four points. The first is a motion like this one being dealt with in the House. In the ethnic communities across Canada, of which we are all very proud and which are an intricate part of the country, we so often fail to let them know how the House of Commons works. A motion like this one is put and they actually have hope that their particular area will be dealt with, that they will get something from the House of Commons.
Mr. Speaker, you have been here long enough to know that will not happen. A motion like this one is not really a debate. It does not put all the issues on the table. It is not coming to any kind of a conclusion. I think that is wrong and is one area we must change in the House of Commons. We must make these things more meaningful because they are so deep in the hearts of the people who are involved.
Second is the issue of genocide itself. We could get out the dictionary and talk about what it is. I probably could bring forward the best meaning from my visit to Bosnia where we went out and actually talked to the people. We went into churches, mosques, bars and restaurants. We stopped little old ladies on the street and asked them what they thought of what was happening.
I was in nine different schools where I asked the students to write in their own words what it meant to be part of ethnic cleansing. I asked them to tell me what their futures were and what would really happen. The words of those kids were pretty touching. They made us cry. If we talk to Serbian children they tell us about the terrible killings that went on and about the 600,000 people who died. They would describe it like it was yesterday, but they were talking about back in 1943.
We could talk to Croat children and Muslim children and they would tell us about things as if they happened yesterday. I will always remember one little girl's face when she was telling me about the killings. She was talking about the killings in 1536 like it was yesterday. That is what genocide is all about.
Whether we are talking about the Roman empire, the Greeks, Napoleon, the Vikings, the African tribes, the first world war or the second world war or whomever, we will find incidents of what we would classify as genocide, a holocaust. Whatever words we use they are all horrible.
In parliament we often have a double standard in the way we think about things. Quite often we do not have all the information. Every time I hear that our prime minister or foreign affairs minister has visited Cuba again—I know about the horrible human rights abuses in that country—I get mad because of that standard. People are being persecuted in Cuba.
I read all the material and to try to put some real meaning to it I took some quotes at random from either side. I heard things like: “People fled with whatever property they could carry. On the road they were robbed, the women were repeatedly raped and then the men were killed. Women and young children were then killed systematically. My mother's cousin, with her child still nursing at her breast, was shot. Later that still nursing baby was killed with a bayonet”. That is genocide. That is horrible. All of us would say that is inhuman. We cannot let that happen.
When we talk about this sort of thing, it is the human issues we are talking about. I can see why people feel so emotional about them and why they remember 1915 and why they remember 1536 and so on. The events are so horrible that they would undoubtedly change people who witnessed them for the rest of their lives and it would be passed on from generation to generation.
It is time to move on. We need to get all the information on the table, whether it is the Armenian-Turkish situation, what happened in World War II or what happened in Nanking, China, when the Japanese came. Wherever it happened it is time to get historians to put all the cards on the table. In a House like ours we look at the history but most important we move on.
Canada has an important world role. We are members of almost everything. We are members of all important organizations and have a very important role in them. The level of respect for Canadians gives us that role. Our role is one of a negotiator. We are good at that. It is one thing we can do well.
Canada has a role whether it is solving the problem of the Armenian-Turkish-Ottoman crisis that is so real to people, or whether it is something between India and Pakistan, between Israel and Palestine, in Sudan between the north and the south and 43 years of war, or north Korea and south Korea. The list goes on and on.
I could talk about the genocide and the killings on both sides, but if there is one message to send it is what should Canadians be doing in foreign affairs. I do not believe a soft power approach is the way to go. I do not believe in simply waiting and seeing what happens, kind of coasting along and making grandiose statements about people and so on.
Let us do something. Let us not let the Rwandas happen. Let us not let the Kosovos happen. Let us take an active role and let us back it up with a modern, well mandated military that knows what it is doing. Let us back it up with some power. We need to do some real reform of how we look at the UN and of how we handle all these issues. It is diplomacy. That is what it is about.
As Canadian politicians we should be putting forward, instead of more conflict, an academic approach to the records. Some of these countries will not even open up their records or files so we have to do that. If there is one message it is that we must move on.