Mr. Speaker, I understand from my colleague's intervention that he supports NATO's involvement in the Yugoslav republic, on the one hand. I understand that, on the other, he supports our country's humanitarian mission, but there is a bit of a paradox I would like him to explain.
He is proposing that Canada head a UN initiative to make Kosovo a protectorate. We know very well that the UN has proven totally incapable of staunching the hemorrhage that started in Kosovo long before NATO initiated its air strikes.
How is it possible to acknowledge that the UN has been unable to fulfil the role now played by NATO and at the same time ask the UN to provide a solution to the problems it could not initially solve?
The two are incompatible.
My colleague mentioned quite rightly and simply cowardice. To count on the impossibility of acting in order to assuage one's conscience would be cowardice. Seeing that the UN was unable to intervene to resolve the basic humanitarian problem in Kosovo, NATO intervened, and we supported this initiative. It would have been cowardice to say “Since we cannot resolve the problem with the UN, let us do nothing”.