Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to participate in this take note debate concerning the situation in Kosovo and the situation in the Central African Republic.
This debate was arranged at very short notice and without any briefing to members of parliament.
Minutes ago I asked a question. I did not get the answer. I wanted to ask the question to any other member in the House to find out if anyone can explain or highlight the diplomatic initiative or the preventive measures this government has taken to address the situation in Kosovo or in the Central African Republic, particularly in Kosovo since we had a debate in the House on October 7. From then until now what initiatives have they taken? I did not get an answer to that question.
The government should have been pursuing initiatives long ago, at least when we saw the signs of the problem occurring. But it failed to take any initiative.
Now we know that plan A has failed. Plan A is the diplomatic initiative or preventive measures. Even though the government did not pursue it aggressively, we are asked to go to plan B. Plan B is military action. I call it the bitter medicine for peacekeeping.
I ask the foreign affairs minister to look into the possibilities of peacemaking missions rather than peacekeeping missions in the long run.
The Central African Republic is the poorest of the poor countries. I lived in west Africa. I was a university professor in Liberia, west Africa. I have visited many countries in west Africa. What I saw in the bloody civil wars were 10-year old, 12-year old children with AK-47s. I am talking the real guns which can kill, not toys.
The point is those guns are not made in those countries. Some countries in the weapons trade have manufactured those guns and then sold them to the poor people in those countries. That is how they get the guns. I wonder what action the United Nations, the international community and, for that matter, Canada have taken to prevent infiltration of those war causing weapons, particularly in poverty ridden countries.
People have problems putting food on the table in the evening. Their families are starving but they get guns to fight. How can they afford to buy those weapons? What have we done to stop the weapons trade? Absolutely nothing.
Some countries sell weapons to those countries and then they send in peacekeeping missions. How appalling this situation is. We need to find sustainable, long term and real solutions to these civil and tribal wars. We should help promote democracy and education in those countries. A democratic power in any country should lead to justice. Justice should lead to love. People should love each other when they get justice because they are satisfied. No one has worked on these things. When power leads to justice and justice leads to love that is how we get rid of hatred, poverty, ignorance and bloody civil wars which we face every now and then. It is a sad story.
Let me give the House an analogy. When a pressure cooker is heated steam is produced. To contain that steam we put weight on the pressure cooker. Here we try to put military pressure to contain that steam. People of these countries are already deeply divided based on their ethnic backgrounds or on their tribal origins. If we do not want that steam have we ever taken any action to remove the heat from under the pressure cooker? No, I do not think so. Have we ever resolved an issue by solving the problem before it explodes? No, we have not.
In most African countries, including central Africa, ethnic and tribal problems lead to these bloody civil wars. Did any member of the international community do anything to stop the branding of the people based on their ethnic origin, based on the tribes they belong to? That is a root cause of the civil war and tribal wars in those countries.
In African countries when people meet and greet each other either they recognize what tribes they belong to or they ask them what their tribe is, whether it is Loma or Mandingo or whatever. What education has been given to them to recognize the similarity among them rather than dwelling on the differences among them? No one has done anything. These people have similarities. No one has made them recognize the similarities.
What can we expect from the Canadian government? There are no efforts to do that even in our country. This government encourages the concept of hyphenated Canadians. With the hyphenation concept we divide people, not unite them. Unfortunately this government has done absolutely nothing on that.
Our government, I am sorry to say, lacks a proactive role. It reacts to a situation but does not take a proactive role. This government does very little to prevent conflicts in the world. But it is always on the front line making decisions to send our troops without worrying about what situation they are in or whether they have enough equipment and facilities, whether they have consulted elected officials of the House of Commons. The decision is made before that.
We try to resolve political problems by providing foreign aid or by sending military personnel. These are the two solutions we have to resolve these problems anywhere in the world. We either send foreign aid dollars or we send the military. That is not appropriate.
The government needs a broader agenda for peacekeeping and peacemaking issues. Repeatedly there have been serious situations in countries like Rwanda, Nigeria, Bosnia, Haiti, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the list goes on. Unfortunately this situation will happen again.
I am sorry the United Nations has the inability to respond in a timely fashion. I recognize there is a vacuum and we have to show leadership. Britain, France, Russia and the United States, which was kept busy for one year by Monica, cannot do that.
We are in a strong position as a nation to be mediators in the world. We belong to NATO. We belong to the security council. We are a member of the G-8 countries. We have sent many peacekeeping missions around the world. We are in a perfect position to lead. But this government does not have leading capabilities.
This government is in a better position to lead if it wanted to. We can take peacemaking initiatives in the world. But unfortunately this government lacks those initiatives. There is no leadership. Here is another vacuum.
This is a very important issue but there is also another important issue. If we are planning to take any military action and if we are committing our military support to NATO that means we are committing men and women of the Canadian forces. Many questions deserve answers before we should commit anyone or anything anywhere.
The main question arises here as to whether we are well equipped. Obviously the answer is no. Based on what we have been hearing in the last few months, the answer is no. The defence minister asked for $700 million but he received only $325 million in the 1999 budget. Yesterday the minister received less than half the money he wanted.
I also learned that the Canadian forces have 35 year old Sea King helicopters, decades old tanks, 100 useless tactical helicopters, 20 to 45 year old jets and we are expecting to participate in the air attacks with the equipment we have.
This government has cut $7.8 billion in the defence budget since taking office in 1993. Our defence forces are starving. The minister allowed our troops to be inoculated with expired vaccine. Here is the funny part. He allowed our troops to be inoculated with expired vaccine and he is so irresponsible and so uncaring that he inoculated himself with the expired vaccine.
My constituents and all Canadians need answers to many questions. Canadians are asking why we are choosing a military situation over a diplomatic situation. I do not have any answers. What other possible solutions could we pursue? What are the possibilities of finding a long term solution to this bloody civil war? How are we dealing with the hatred in the minds of those ethic people?
We can send our troops on a peacekeeping mission. They can keep discipline, they can scare people or they can kill people. But how can they kill the hatred in the minds of the people which is the root cause of these bloody civil wars? That is most important. That is the root cause of the problem. Since I have been here the Liberals have never addressed the root cause.
How much involvement are we asking from the European Community or other affected and related countries in dealing with this issue which is in their backyard? What strategy do we have to deal with the security situation in that region? What participation do we have from the neighbouring countries? Canadians want to know whether we will be creating more victims by bombing in that area. What about those victims we will be creating? Are we creating more victims of the war by bombing?
What is the game plan? We on this side of the House do not know what the game plan is. We do not know what equipment we will be using, how many people are going, for how long, what will be the cost and how much will be our share. We do not know those things. Canadians would like to know how much it will cost, who is paying, what is our share, and whether the government assessed the degree of risk before it committed the men and women of the Canadian defence forces. What is the degree of risk? Do they have enough equipment and facilities? They have old equipment and absolutely no facilities. They were exchanging helmets on previous missions.
I am looking forward to those answers but I doubt we will get them from this government. We will only get answers after our tax dollars have been spent and our troops have had to take the great risks.
For how long are we going to commit our military forces? We had a bad experience in Cyprus. We were stuck there for 29 years.
Can the government members throw some light on that? No they cannot because the Liberal backbenchers and even the cabinet ministers are insignificant under the tyranny and dictatorship of the current Prime Minister. The very few Liberal backbenchers who are here tonight are pretending to debate in this House. They only know what they are told to say by the foreign minister, the defence minister or the Prime Minister. Even the minister feels like the last one to know. The Prime Minister takes orders from President Bill Clinton or others. They tell him when and where they need our troops. Do we simply have a take note emergency debate and then decide that because it is a humanitarian issue we have to show support for our allies?
We need answers to all these questions before we decide what we should do. This government is the root cause. It is causing our armed forces personnel to jump without knowing where they are jumping to. An eleventh hour take note debate is not an appropriate way to deal with the important and sad situations in Kosovo and the Central African Republic but it is the only option given by the Liberal government to the members of this House.
We will unfortunately be dealing with these peace initiatives in the future. We expect the government will come up with some strategy to educate Canadians, to let them know what we are doing, why we are doing it and where we are going from here. We can go to plan B because plan A has not succeeded. We did not take the aggressive initiatives for plan A so we are going to plan B which is military action. That is bitter medicine and we have to use it.
I could understand doing that in order to put pressure on the conflicting parties so they would come together in an agreement. But if we really want our forces to go there, I would be skeptical. Like other members of the opposition, I do not have full information.
We intend to support our allies and the brave men and women of our armed forces but we need answers to those questions. We need a good briefing and then a good logical debate in this House. Otherwise, whatever we decide has no effect because the decision has already been made by this government. The Liberals do not have the courage to put this issue to a vote in the House. They do not have the courage to educate Canadians on this issue.
In conclusion, let me wish good luck to our brave men and women of the armed forces.