Madam Speaker, despite the late hour, it is almost 12.30 a.m. here in Ottawa, it is really prime time out in British Columbia, about 9.30 p.m. I suspect that a lot of my constituents from Prince George—Peace River who have expressed deep concern to me and to my offices in the riding over the past few weeks about the war in Kosovo and Serbia will be watching this debate tonight with great interest.
Despite the late hour, it is a pleasure for me to participate in this take note debate. However, it is unfortunate that it is just a take note debate.
Before we committed troops to the air war we had a debate in the House, but we have never really had a full blown debate on this issue and we have never had a vote in the House of Commons on such an important issue. One of the big issues that came up repeatedly today in question period was the lack of commitment on the part of the Prime Minister to uphold democracy and to put this issue to a vote.
It has been clarified by all the speakers for the official opposition tonight and by the leader earlier this afternoon that we support NATO involvement in the Balkans. As all members have said and as I have heard repeatedly tonight, even from the government side, it is very reluctant support that all of us give to this war that we find ourselves in, but it is necessary. I believe that the majority of Canadians across the land are supportive as well.
I say that with a certain degree of sadness. When this began there were greatly mixed emotions and feelings across the land about the issue, whether NATO should be involved or whether there was any legal means for NATO to be doing the things that it began to do with the air strikes and cruise missiles going into Belgrade, other cities and military locations throughout Serbia.
Over the course of time, as one would suspect, when citizens in a free and democratic country are confronted nightly on the news with the appalling scenes of misery, death and destruction that have been perpetrated on the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, public opinion has swung quite decidedly.
In speaking with the people of Prince George—Peace River I have heard some conflict in opinion over the past few weeks, but generally speaking they understand why we are there and they understand what we are endeavouring to accomplish.
I would like to talk about the Rambouillet accord and its failure to bring about a negotiated settlement. The accord was brokered by the UN security council contact group, which includes Russia. There are three conditions in the Rambouillet accord: that Kosovo must remain an integral part of Serbia; that Kosovo would get some broad autonomy in its operations; and that 28,000 international troops would be placed in Kosovo to monitor its implementation and to keep the peace.
I heard from a constituent in my riding, Professor Jernej Polajnar of the University of Northern British Columbia, and I welcome his input. Professor Polajnar is much more of an authority on the conflict in the Balkans than I probably ever will be. He notes that the main sticky point between the position of Kosovo and that of President Milosevic is the third condition, that 28,000 troops have to be in place to keep the peace in Kosovo.
I was quite pleased that following the Prime Minister's speech earlier today he was asked whether there was not some room on that issue to look at a truly international force rather than a NATO force. This is an important point because NATO is viewed by Serbians as the aggressor. I am not speaking just of Milosevic; I am talking about the Serbian people. There are a lot of reasons for that. Probably one of them is the lack of open media in Serbia to get an unfiltered message out.
Why would the average Serbian, who has bombs and cruise missiles raining down upon them nightly, want to capitulate to the third condition and see NATO troops being the ones supposedly keeping the peace? I would submit that is absurd. Of course they will not.
If there is some room to manoeuvre on this point Canada should be actively engaging the Russians or perhaps the Finns. I am not an authority on which countries would be the best to approach, but I am sure there must be some countries that would be more acceptable to the Serbian people to play the role of peacekeepers in Kosovo than NATO. If that is the biggest sticking point, then I suggest we must look at moving on from that third point of the Rambouillet accord.
Certainly I am not privy to the diplomatic efforts being made by our government to actively approach the Russians and others to get them involved and to encourage them to come forward with a plan in which they would participate, to play that role as peacekeepers.
I am very fortunate as a member of parliament to have a weekly column in the newspapers in my riding. There are a number of them because it is a large rural riding. I wrote a column a couple of weeks ago on this subject. I said in the column, as all members have said during the debate, that I reluctantly supported the military intervention because I saw it as a last resort, that we had to do something.
I used the example of the appalling loss of life that took place in Rwanda. It is estimated that 800,000 people lost their lives in that conflict while the world sat back and watched. I suggested in the column that we simply could not do that in all good conscience. We have a moral obligation and responsibility as free and democratic people and we must intercede and do what we can to try to prevent that from happening in Kosovo. I believe we are endeavouring to do that.
Canadians must grapple with the question of whether we should commit our own troops to try to prevent that type of genocide. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot sit in front of our televisions saying “Oh my God, why doesn't someone do something”, and then condemn the government if it acts and does something to try to prevent it.
That was my message in my column. It was fairly well received according to the feedback from my constituents. People generally understand that there has to be a reckoning for Milosevic and his type.
As I said at the outset, the official opposition and I support the continuing air war, but there must be some strong conditions and there must be an open honest debate if we ever get to the next step. We are probably going to have to look at the insertion of ground troops in Kosovo. We definitely must have a vote in the House of Commons if and when that takes place.