Mr. Speaker, indeed it is a pleasure today to speak on Motion No. 380. I compliment my colleague from Red Deer on pursuing this important issue.
This is an issue of accountability and an issue of democracy. The United States is even obligated to bring its requests for international military involvement in front of Congress.
The people's representatives must have the ability to analyse whether a group of our soldiers should be going abroad. This should not be left as an executive decision. There is an element of accountability and an element of democracy. Many things need to be done and we need to illustrate a very important problem. The hon. government member mentioned there were debates taking place in this House. The hon. member knows very well that in spite of the fact that the debates on a foreign affair took place in this House, the decision as to whether troops would be deployed were made prior to that.
In a visit to Davos, Switzerland, the Prime Minister made a side agreement and publicly stated that somehow he is going to send troops to Kosovo. Was anybody consulted? Not when the foreign affairs minister is saying something completely different. Apparently not. Motion No. 380 would prevent that from happening. It would enable parliament and the people's representatives to decide whether troops should be sent for the good of Canada.
I will get to the heart of the matter, that we have a big problem in our country. We have a huge discrepancy between the demands placed on our defence department, which is really the muscle of our foreign affairs department, the commitments being made by our foreign affairs department and the international needs being placed on us.
Let us not forget our individual security as nations is intimately entwined with our collective security. Right now in 1999 our allies do not look at us as a player, as the hon. parliamentary secretary mentioned. We are not a player anymore in international security because our military does not have the capability to do the good job it has historically done. The individuals in the military are capable of doing that and they are very competent but they are not equipped and tasked to do the job.
The SCONDVA report that just came out articulately mentioned the wide and deep problems affecting our military. It also gave very pragmatic solutions to address those problems. The minister of defence needs to listen to that report. He needs to enact its solutions and resolutions immediately. If the minister does that we can start to fulfil our international obligations and get back the international respect we have had for so long.
How can we send our troops on so-called peacekeeping missions, which is really war by another name, without giving them the tools to do the job? For example, our helicopters are 30 years old, towed artillery is 45 years old, nearly going back to World War II, and our other artillery is 30 years old. Our CF-18 fighters are having so much strain in their superstructures that they are breaking down and our 30 year old helicopters are falling out of the sky. Our navy's anti-submarine warfare obligations are being severely compromised as are our search and rescue capabilities. Our country desperately needs those capabilities. Not only are those capabilities compromised but the men and women in our military who put their lives on the line every day for our security are put on the line.
We have an obligation to those men and women in uniform to fund them to do the job, to task them to do the job and to ensure the leadership is there to do the job. But as the SCONDVA report very articulately mentioned, that is not there.
The foreign affairs department has to work hand in glove with the defence department. They cannot work as two entities. They are two halves of the same whole. I commend the Minister of Foreign Affairs for doing a very good job on some of his initiatives over the last few years which have brought peace and security internationally. However, he must work with the minister of defence and vice versa.
From a foreign affairs perspective we must engage in initiatives to prevent conflict from happening. What we see internationally is a global impotence in dealing with conflict. Many meetings have taken place. The Kosovo example is just one or we could go back to Rwanda or any number of conflicts in recent years. The former Yugoslavia is another example. We hear a lot of talk, a lot of babble and a lot of hot air but we see individuals who are sometimes willing flaunt their power in the face of international law against their own people causing the death, destruction and maiming of hundreds of thousands of people. In the face of that the international community wags its finger impotently in their face. What to they get back? They get no response.
Kosovo is a perfect example. The bottom line is from a foreign affairs perspective if we are to face up to tyranny then we better have the muscle to back up what we demand of those draconian rulers.
From a non-military perspective there are foreign affairs initiatives that can take place. Our foreign affairs department has the capability of dealing with preventive measures. We need to use our personnel, particularly in the IMF, World Bank and the UN, to have an integrated, preventive approach to conflict.
War needs money. Choke off the money supply and the ability of individuals to engage in war is choked off. Whether we are looking at conflicts that are on the horizon or the many conflicts that are taking place right now, they put demands on our military. From Angola, which is about ready to blow up right now, to Sierra Leon, which is in a state of complete disarray, to central Africa, which is a conflict that threatens to expand and involve many countries, a war the likes of which we have not seen in decades, to the caucuses, to Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia, Indonesia, all these are just some of the hot spots we will potentially be asked to participate in. If we are to ask our people to participate, we have to fund them properly.
I ask that the foreign affairs minister be wise in his decisions concerning involvement. That is the root of the motion from the member for Red Deer. This decision should not be placed in the hands of a few but it should be placed in the hands of this House, the representative of the people, for it is Canadian people who are putting their lives on the line.
Returning to our military solutions and looking at the SCONDVA report, they require funding back to what they were in 1994. Military personnel now are 60,000 less than our capability. Bring them back to a fighting force of perhaps 70,000 to 75,000 or at least integrate the demands of our defence department with the number of personnel available.
On the pay and allowance issue, there are important concerns that need to be addressed. How can we ask men and women to travel half a world away if they are worried about whether their wives or husbands have enough food to put on the table to feed their children? That is how serious this issue is and that in part is eroding the morale of our forces.
The power of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to engage in non-military initiatives to prevent conflict has not been examined properly. Those groups need to look at the economic power and use that against despots who are willing to use their power against individuals for the sake of the pursuit of power in the most heinous ways.
I ask the foreign affairs minister to pursue that with our competent people in these organizations and offer the foreign affairs minister and the defence minister our help in pursuing the effective, pragmatic solutions that we can engage in to make Canada an effective contributor to peace internationally, to keep our troops safe and also to bring peace and security to a world in turmoil.