Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions. He says we cannot keep peace where there is no peace, but in fact the presence of the forces in the Central African Republic is establishing at this particular point an important sense of stability in that country to enable democratic elections which if we withdraw at this time will make it impossible. The member will probably agree with me that it would be very foolish for us to withdraw at this crucial time when we can keep those troops there until such time as the elections can be held.
The Central African Republic is a special case. I appreciate that his comments are more directed toward the problem of Kosovo because that is the more difficult one and the one which will require the greater number of troops. It is precisely the threat of the use of force in Kosovo which is enabling us to get to the point where we may have peace in that region. We may establish a humanitarian regime for people in which to live.
I would suggest to the member that he would have to agree. Whether or not, as his party seems to be saying in the House tonight, Canadians should be involved, would he intellectually say nobody should be involved? Would he say the United States should not be involved or the Europeans should not be involved? In fact the view of his party is that it would be best if everybody stood back and let this whole thing just blow up. Should we let the Albanians and the Serbs go to war with one another, spilling over into other regions, spilling over into Bosnia where we have our own troops that would be at risk?
I took it from the position of his party in the House tonight that I do not think he would go that far. I think he would say some force is necessary but let it not be us that provides the force, which I do not think is an appropriate response in these circumstances.
As for votes in the House in take note debates, I cannot speak to that. That is an agreement the leaders of the House have taken over the years. It may well be that at some point a vote in the House would be appropriate for these debates. At the moment these are called take note debates. They give an opportunity for the members to share views as we are able to do tonight in a way that is helpful to the government to understand issues without necessarily requiring a vote.
As for our party, which he says should be giving a briefing to his party, I do not know whether his party would really want to have a briefing from our party. If that is what he would like, I am sure I would be willing to share with him the views of the minister if he had attended the foreign affairs committee meeting this afternoon where the minister came before the committee and was with us over two hours.
We discussed this issue and the government has always tried to make documents and information available to every member of the House. Every one of us would like to have more information. I share with him the desire to have more information, but I do not think we can say that the government side or the government as such is keeping information from members of the House. I wish that he had had an opportunity to be with us. His colleagues were there in the foreign affairs committee this afternoon where we had a discussion of this matter with the foreign minister. Finally, what are the diplomatic initiatives which Canada has taken? Canada takes an active role in the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an organization which has been directly involved in the Kosovo issue. It is perhaps the most significant organization involved in Kosovo. Canada has played an important role in the OSCE. I know from my own work there that there are many European and other governments which would like to see Canada play an even larger role. But we are not a European country.
We are a North American country. We have limited resources. But within those resources we play a very important role and we have provided observers in Kosovo. We have provided police in Kosovo. In the course of dealing with this situation we have provided an enormous amount of energy on behalf of the department and on behalf of the minister to try to bring the sides together, to persuade the KLA, the armed wing of the Kosovars, to moderate their demands and to persuade the Serbian government of Mr. Milosevic to behave in a civilized way in a part of a country where they are supposed to be managing their own citizens and not treat it as an occupying army.
We have been active in that and I am surprised to hear the member suggest that we have not, because what is curious is that when we do get active in these files we get criticized for spending our time and energy on them, and our money on them, from the party on the other side which does not wish to spend any money, but then when nothing is done it says to us we are doing nothing.
A great deal is being done by this government in working on this file. A great deal has been done by our ambassador at the OSCE. A great deal is being done by all our diplomatic corps in supporting our NATO allies and other in the Rambouillet process and I am surprised that the member would seek to use this partisan moment to criticize what we are trying to do in this very important matter.