Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform you that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Compton—Stanstead. You will recall that my colleague is the one who revealed to Canadians that North Korean missiles were aimed at Montreal.
This being said, this debate, which is not really a debate, but rather the opportunity to express our emotions, raises several questions. Parliamentary rules do not really apply and members have until 11.30 p.m. to speak.
There is one thing government members have been asking us often and that is “Will the opposition parties support the government sending troops to Kosovo?” In fact, the true question is “Will the government support Canadian armed forces so they can to do their job” This is the real question. My colleague from Compton—Stanstead will elaborate on this.
For my part I would like to deal with the diplomatic and geopolitical aspects of the problem in Kosovo. It has been going on for some time now. I do not want to trace the history of this situation at this point, but as members know, throughout history, wars have caused countries to be born and countries to disappear, empires to be built and empires to crumble, and borders to be redefined. On a regular basis, we see very regional problems following various operations, various wars that occurred during the last few decades or the last century.
But our main concern about the situation in Kosovo is the way these activities will be justified and explained. We are thinking about sending a peacekeeping force led by NATO. So there is a problem in that the missions we participate in are normally led by the UN or, in a few cases, by the U.S. But this mission would be led by NATO. The foreign affairs minister talks about “NATO plus”.
This reminds me of when the Americans decided to attack Irak. To justify that operation, the expression “United States plus” was coined, but we said we would not go until a peace agreement was reached. So we hope such an agreement will be reached by February 20.
If this happens before February 20 and we send troops in support of a NATO operation, how will the Serbs and the Kosovars react? These are NATO troops we will be sending over there. These last few months, we had NATO aircraft flying over the Kosovar and Serb territories. This is not a peacekeeping force. That is why it is so hard to justify it.
We in the Progressive Conservative Party have no lessons to learn from anyone. We will indeed support sending troops on peacekeeping duty. It is part of our traditions and we will maintain this tradition. However, I do hope the government realizes we are facing a problem justifying our decision internationally.
Serbia, Albania and the whole geopolitical region are fragile. There are problems in nearby Greece and in Macedonia, where many Albanians live. In Greece, the problems are with the Turks. Then there is not-so-distant Russia, which is preventing us from securing UN support by using its right of veto.
So we are left wondering under which international organization our troops should be deployed. Next thing you know, there will be a new international organization. Should our troops be deployed under the UN? Under NATO? It may not be NATO's role. Perhaps NATO's role will be redefined. It was the role of the UN, but it has financial problems and can no longer afford to send troops on peacekeeping missions. The UN does not have any money to pay for these missions.
When the UN was established, funding for peacekeeping forces was to be provided by the UN. In committee this afternoon, the Minister of External Affairs gave a very good example, Bangladesh, which used to send highly professional and disciplined peacekeeping troops but can no longer afford to do so.
We in Canada keep sending troops. Canadian taxpayers are paying for that, but the government opposite is not being very supportive. Otherwise, the men and women of our armed forces would be better dressed, they would have boots to wear. Thank God, things are beginning to move in the right direction.
But, once again, we have a problem justifying our involvement. Working only with NATO is dangerous. It is extremely dangerous. It sends a very bad message. The Serbs do not seem to take this threat seriously.
And what will happen should the peacekeeping negotiations fail? The UN's efforts have failed. NATO's efforts have failed. At one point, even the OSCE had representatives in Kosovo. There is a whole lot of people who have gone to Kosovo without having the mandate to settle the conflict. And we are now trying to justify sending our troops there. It is extremely dangerous.
We are pleased to have an opportunity to discuss this issue. I will simply say that I hope parliament will be unanimous in sending our troops on a peacekeeping mission. This is extremely important. We must avoid another situation like the Gulf war, even though this is different, where our Liberal friends refused to support our armed forces.
I sincerely hope that, together, we will be able to support our armed forces in this mission. I also hope that we will be able to provide financial and technical support to our men and women who will represent us in this peacekeeping mission to Kosovo.