Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments. Throughout the debate today and certainly in question period the leader of the NDP; our foreign affairs critic, the member for Burnaby—Douglas; and all of us who have spoken in the debate have made it very clear that we believe the debate today is an opportunity for us to assess the position that has been taken by all political parties and what we should do now and in the future.
I reiterate we are hugely concerned that after 20 days of bombing we appear to be no further ahead in terms of achieving the objectives of how NATO was sent in, in the first place. We believe that through the United Nations, through a special meeting of the general assembly, we should be issuing a call to Mr. Milosevic to end his ground war, to come back to the table, and to pursue diplomacy and negotiations. On that basis bombing should be halted.
We should take this time to say that if we are serious about negotiations there are choices within that. The peace accord from Rambouillet is something that is probably now off the table. We only have to look at what happened in Northern Ireland to know that if there is a commitment to make it work a very real and genuine course can be followed.
In response to the member, that is what we in the New Democratic Party want to see emphasized. We believe now is the time to increase that effort from the UN and to have the international community, including very strategic players in terms of Russia and China or other interests in the Balkan area, be part of that initiative so that we do not lose an opportunity to give negotiation and diplomacy a chance.
What is the alternative? It is to issue other ultimatums and to keep up the bombing. I would ask a question of the member. Can we seriously and legitimately say that we have achieved the objective that was laid out to us 20 days ago? I think not.