Mr. Speaker, I withdraw those remarks. I am very sorry.
The importance of this issue cannot be underscored enough because we are talking here tonight about sending our men and women off to very dangerous situations. While it has been indicated that we are talking about peacekeeping activities I guess we have to ask ourselves what does this really mean. What do we really mean when we talk about peacekeeping?
If we look at these countries and see the atrocities taking place, far too often peacekeeping means actually peacemaking. It means people going into a very dangerous situation not only for themselves but for many of the innocent civilians living in the area.
We are talking about sending our men and women into a war torn zone. It is a zone where people are killing each other, where there is senseless slaughter. We are talking about sending our troops to these areas. We must be mindful of that.
The other thing I am concerned about is that we saw various tapes and heard various reports about people who had returned from previous peacekeeping missions, whether it was in the gulf war or elsewhere. We heard about the post-traumatic stress syndrome and the after effects that many of these people experienced from being on these missions. The question is how well prepared are we to provide support when our troops return home. What kinds of preparation do we give people for these kinds of missions? How well equipped are our troops? This issue has been raised already in terms of what kinds of equipment we will have. We have heard stories of people returning from other missions. As they were crossing over and they knew people were going, they were exchanging helmets because we did not have proper supplies for these people.
The other issue that has been raised recently in the House is with respect to vaccines. We heard about troops who were given vaccines. There were questions as to whether these were properly tested, whether they were safe for our troops and so forth. These are issues that come to mind as well. We saw a person who was court martialled because he did not want to take a vaccine which he felt had some very serious questions about his safety and his health.
These are questions we have to look at when we think about these missions. Quite often we find that the people who have gone on these missions have become skilled and experienced. When it comes time for another mission we redeploy the same troops. We find these people are leaving their families again and are going off on missions quite often for unspecified periods of time. These are questions that have to be dealt with as well.
The other thing I asked the hon. minister earlier is what would be the duties of these people. What authority will they have to protect themselves and take action when they are faced with very serious and dangerous situations. The response was these things have not been defined yet. These will be worked out in due course. These are the kinds of issues that are very important and that we want to know before a decision is made to engage people in that activity. We want to know the kind of training received.
The other very important issue is will these missions be backed by a UN resolution. We find more and more we are moving toward, as the minister said, NATO led missions. What exactly does that mean? We know that when it comes to international affairs and concerns the United Nations is the body that should sanction and give approval to these kinds of missions. That is a very important issue that should be dealt with.
Generally speaking, when we think should we get involved in these missions, I do not feel we have much choice when it comes to deciding whether to help fellow human beings overcome adversity. It is very important that we as individuals, we as human beings, fulfil our responsibility to our brothers and our sisters. Am I my brother's keeper? I believe we are. We have an international obligation to fulfil our responsibilities in that regard. But we must do it under appropriate conditions.
We must do it knowing the situation. We should not be responding with a knee-jerk reaction simply because someone else is deciding that they need us to assist them in that mission. We should know the facts. We should know the details. We should be fully briefed ahead of time and able to address these issues with some degree of knowledge and some base of information.
I want to draw the attention of the House to what I feel is a very important matter. While we are looking at fighting or sending our troops to deal with issues in other parts of the world, it is important that we not loose sight of the fact that there are many issues at home that have an underlying dimension which is similar.
We have talked many times about ethic cleansing when we look at what is happening in some of the other parts of the world. But we see the same dynamics happening right here at home when we look at different situations involving our own people here in Canada. It is a matter of degree as to where the difference is but basically the same principle is there.
We need to respect each other as fellow human beings and deal with the issues of sharing of resources. A lot of these conflicts are based around struggles for power, for resources, whether it be mines with diamonds or whatever. These are quite often the things that are causing conflict between people. Everybody is struggling for these precious resources.
We have the same thing happening to a large degree right here in Canada. We do not have the kind of sharing of resources that we should have in order for people to take advantage of them, to get along together and lead a productive life.
We have to apply the lessons that we learn abroad here at home. It is just one step beyond that we could find ourselves facing similar kinds of strife within our country. Far too often we look at conflicts in other parts of the world and we think it is happening over there, it is really not the kind of thing that could happen here in Canada. But is it really something that could not happen here in Canada?
I was watching TV the other night when the riot police were called out to deal with the homeless who had come to Ottawa. My daughter said “Oh my goodness, dad, I have never seen anything like this before in Canada”. We could have very easily transposed that scene to a foreign country where there would be fighting in the street and riot police confronting people. We are not that different. Let us not kid ourselves.
Even though there are very serious questions around these missions and even though I am speaking on the basis of a lack of appropriate information because of the manner in which we have been briefed on this, I do feel that it is very important for Canada to support its allies with respect to trying to maintain peace and harmony in other countries and to help avoid the senseless bloodshed we see taking place with human beings being killed, maimed and violated every day in various ways.
I feel it is important for us to fulfill our duty and we would support the efforts that would be taken in that regard. As I said before, we must deal with those other issues and not always be responding after the fact and making the decisions in an emergency situation when there is sufficient time to get information in advance and to be briefed on these things properly.