Debates of April 12th, 1999

Kosovo

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart and mixed feelings that I rise today to speak on this very important issue, the issue of the Canadian Armed Forces going overseas to help protect freedom and democracy.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the many men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who on a daily basis serve and represent their country in many theatres overseas, not only in the area of fighting on behalf of their country, but particularly in the area of peacekeeping in many troubled spots around the globe.

I also want to thank and praise the Canadian fighter pilots who are now overseas taking action on behalf of their country. I want to praise their families and loved ones who are sitting at home wondering exactly what is happening to their loved ones. I know that times are difficult for these families. I want them to know that Canadians all across this country thank them. I know Canadians would agree with me to pray for their loved ones.

How did we get into this crisis? Mr. Milosevic's intransigence, his conduct in this current crisis in Kosovo, his support of the Yugoslav army in going into the area and raping, pillaging, and removing these poor people out of their homes and their country was something Canada needed to respond to.

Prior to Milosevic's rise to power, Kosovo was made up mostly of ethnic Albanians and had constitutional authority within the country of Yugoslavia. This right was stripped away from these people by Mr. Milosevic in 1989. Since then his security forces and his police have mounted a campaign in which innocent men, women and children have suffered.

Canada has had a long history in this region. It has participated in the region since 1991. It was part of the European Community's monitoring mission from 1992 to 1995.

Diplomatic solutions are preferable. In March 1998 the United Nations passed a resolution which called on parties to this conflict to reach a peace settlement. This was followed by another resolution which demanded both sides to end their hostilities and come to a peaceful agreement.

In October 1998 when faced by the threat of NATO air power, the Milosevic government agreed to a ceasefire. It agreed to an observer mission to oversee the ceasefire and also agreed to sit down and have talks on the issue. Over the next five months, Yugoslav forces violated this ceasefire. They took actions against the Kosovo Liberation Army and carried out a violent campaign and also carried out a violent campaign against the citizens. Canada and the international community could not stand by and see these people suffer.

An interim agreement was agreed to in Rambouillet, France. That agreement was signed by only one party. Unfortunately the Serbian delegation refused to sign. Again the Americans, through Richard Holbrooke, tried to get an agreement and tried to get the Milosevic government to see reason in its actions. Those talks failed and we are now in this situation.

The United Nations would have been the preferable way to resolve this issue. However, the United Nations Security Council could not come up with an agreement because two countries refused to agree for various reasons.

I was encouraged when United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called on Milosevic and the Yugoslav Serb authorities to end immediately the campaign of intimidation and expulsion. He called on them to cease all activities of military and paramilitary forces in Kosovo, to accept unconditionally the return of refugees, to accept the deployment of an international military force, and to permit the international community to verify this. The NATO objectives in Kosovo are essentially the same requests by Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Canada's preference and I am sure the preference of all Canadians would have been a negotiated settlement. I speak now on behalf of my constituents in Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant whom I have talked to not only during the last two weeks over the Easter break but before that. Most of them have said to me that they would have preferred a negotiated settlement. They would have preferred the United Nations system to work.

I can speak for the overwhelming majority of them when I say that these constituents of mine support the position of the Government of Canada on this. They support the fact that the Government of Canada is involved not only on the military side but particularly on the humanitarian side, on the side of trying to help the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in the region. We have seen on TV the signs of women and children coming out of the area.

It is important also to thank Canadians for their humanitarian efforts in this area. Many Canadians through their church groups and their community organizations have offered support for people in this area. About 800,000 or a million displaced people need our help. I thank Canadians in all parts of the country for coming forward with that help.

I thank the members of the Canadian armed forces who are now in the region, away from their families and loved ones, representing our country. I thank them for their efforts and assure them of the Government of Canada's continued support to help them in their efforts.

I call on the Milosevic government to listen to reason, to look at the negotiated settlement of Rambouillet and to stop the hostilities in that area.

The Government of Canada is on the right track. I believe that Canadians support us in this. It is something I am sure no government would ever want to do, but it is something that I can say on behalf of my constituents that we support.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things the hon. member said which is worth exploring is one of the things that bothers me, which is the analysis that has attended our getting into this situation. The member referred to it when he talked about the fact that the Milosevic government did not sign the Rambouillet agreement but that the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army did.

It seems to me that we can make too much of this. Not so much that Milosevic did not sign it. I think that is obviously something that should be taken into consideration, although there is a considerable degree of analysis which suggests that the Rambouillet agreement was designed in such a way as to make it impossible for Mr. Milosevic to sign it. But we can also overemphasize, it seems to me, the fact that the KLA did sign it, because the KLA signed it in the full knowledge that the Serbian government would not sign it. There was no price to pay for signing this agreement.

I think it is a mistake to laud the KLA for signing this peace agreement, not that I am suggesting the member did it but I have heard others do it. The KLA knew full well the other party to the talks would not sign. By signing it in the full knowledge that the others would not sign it, in effect they conscripted NATO as their air force in this conflict between themselves and the Serbian government.

I suggest to the member not by way of argument that this is one of the things that bothers me about the analysis that at one point or another we have all accepted. I am not trying to single out the member, or his party for that matter, because this was a decision that was made with a certain degree of unanimity here in parliament.

One of the elements that bothers me in the analysis we were all informed by is the overemphasis of the fact that the KLA had signed the Rambouillet agreement when the Serbs had not. In fact I have been told there was an earlier agreement which the Serbs signed and the KLA did not. It is a bit more murky than we we have made out collectively.

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.

Most international observers and countries around the world when they look at that agreement, the situation and the history of the area, would agree it was a reasonable agreement. It was not a situation in which somehow the world was taking this area out of Yugoslavia. It was giving the people the same authority they had had before 1989 when the Milosevic government essentially took it away from them.

The purpose of the agreement was to give the people in that area the ability to have self-government, to govern themselves, to work in the area in such a way that they could fend for their families and have some sort of democracy, the ability to have a government to speak on their behalf. It was not a situation in which we were saying that we were going to rip this area out of Yugoslavia. The hon. member would agree that most observers feel it was a reasonable agreement.

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask the same question I put earlier to his colleague, who completely ignored it because he did not understand it, I believe.

How is it that all the diplomatic efforts that were made failed? How did we reach this dead end and why is there such urgency now? What else could have been done on the diplomatic front? Did Canada do all it could in this respect? What was missing?

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to praise the work of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence, the minister responsible for humanitarian relief and the Prime Minister for the work they have done in this area. Knowing the Prime Minister and how he takes his job seriously, it must be difficult for him to be sitting at the top and making decisions such as this. It is something he has taken seriously. I commend the Prime Minister and give him our blessings because I know this has to be a difficult time for him.

The hon. member's question is very difficult to answer. Nobody knows. We try as much as we can to come up with a solution. The United Nations is working on a solution. Many countries in the region have tried to come up with a solution.

As I said in answer to the previous question, most would agree that the Rambouillet agreement seemed to be a reasonable compromise. Why the United Nations Security Council, and why it could not work in this situation needs to be seriously looked at. I wish it could have worked and I am sure most Canadians wish it could have worked, but we could not stand by as a government and see the suffering going on in that region without taking action. I want to praise the Prime Minister for taking that action.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

The situation in which we find ourselves in Yugoslavia today with respect to Kosovo is a perfect example in my mind of what was meant when someone said that the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

We had a situation developing in Kosovo which was reminiscent of things that had happened previously in Bosnia. Europe, North America and the world in general felt guilty about not doing enough about that situation in time. When we saw an analogous but not a perfectly analogous situation developing in Kosovo, there was an appropriate sense of moral urgency that we not allow a similar situation to occur. We had this sense that something had to be done, but what was to be done?

In spite of all that we know from history about the ineffectiveness of bombing and about the counterproductive effect that bombing often has on a population, we nevertheless opted as a parliament and as a country to approve air strikes by NATO. We did that with the understanding that three conditions applied at the time.

The first condition was that it would be short in duration, that it would only be for two or three days. This is the kind of assurances that were given publicly and were given privately.

It was also agreed to on the condition that it would be effective in bringing Milosevic back to the table. That is why it would only take two or three days. The argument was that Milosevic only needed this almost therapeutic bombing to provide him with an opportunity to come back to the table.

We were told that this would be effective in protecting ethnic Albanians, that it would bring an end to the atrocities being perpetrated against the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo.

It failed on all three counts. It has not been short. We are almost at the end of the third week of bombing, and the bombing has not been as selective and as smart as we would have liked. That is another thing we were promised. We see almost every day now mistakes being made, trains being bombed, car plants being bombed. It has not been effective in bringing Milosevic back to the table. It has not been effective in protecting ethnic Albanians. Certainly no one would want to argue that. The situation has become arguably worse since the bombing started.

Having regard to the debate about ground troops, I would certainly be sceptical if the same people, the same analysts, the same brain trust that gave me these assurances three weeks ago, were then to come back to the House and say that they would like us to make a decision in favour of ground troops in Kosovo. Frankly their record in terms of analysis and in terms of consequences is not a good one. It seems to me that there is a rational argument for at least taking stock of the current situation, taking stock of our analysis and what might have been wrong with it, and taking stock of where we go from here.

Very quickly in terms of the analysis, we need to entertain the notion that we underestimated the depth of Serbian feeling about Kosovo and the depth of the symbolism involved in Kosovo with respect to the Serbian collective psyche, something that transcends Mr. Milosevic and something that we may well have misunderstood and underestimated in our initial analysis.

We need to entertain the notion that we have not fully understood the implications of the Rambouillet agreement in so far as it pertains to how the Serbians understood that agreement. Many of the conditions in Rambouillet may have been conditions that were simply never on with respect to how the Serbians saw the situation.

I am thinking in particular of what I understand to have been a late add on to Rambouillet after the Russians signed off in an earlier stage of the negotiations which stipulated that it would be NATO troops in Serbia that would supervise the Rambouillet agreement. We need to look at that and ask ourselves some difficult questions about it.

As I said earlier, we need to ask ourselves whether or not we are exaggerating the difference between the KLA and the Serbians in terms of who signed the agreement and who did not when we know that the KLA only signed after it knew the Serbians would not sign. We know that there was an earlier agreement in which the Serbs signed and the KLA did not.

I raise these things in terms of thinking that we have to be self-critical. We have to be reflective on whether the analysis that caused us to embark on this was adequate. Having done these things with an inadequate analysis but nevertheless for the very best of reasons, which was to stop the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Kosovo, we need to take stock of what to do now.

My leader in the House of Commons and the critic for the NDP, the member for Burnaby—Douglas, suggested that one thing we could do would be to lower the threshold which is now being imposed upon Milosevic for coming back to the table.

We know what NATO is saying and what the UN secretary general is saying, that Milosevic has to meet five different conditions. We know those conditions are unacceptable, so why are we setting the bar so high that we know we are literally making ourselves captive to a bombing strategy that goes on and on? Why not make the only condition that the killing stop, that the atrocities stop and that the expulsion of Albanian Kosovars stop?

We suggest that be the condition on which NATO and Milosevic go back to the table with the bombing and killing stopping. We hope it would create an opportunity in which diplomatic efforts can succeed. If it does not then we have to consider once again what the military strategy may be. We simply do not see the wisdom of adhering to a policy which says basically that we have set conditions that we know are unacceptable and if they continue to not accept them we will bomb Yugoslavia forever and a day until such time as it accepts the unacceptable. We find this to be a dubious strategy.

Another thing we have said, which is an important point to make, is that we have been very concerned, particularly with the way the Minister of National Defence has talked, about it having to be NATO troops that are there to supervise whatever settlement is arrived at. We need to talk more about the international community and the UN, but I am also concerned that what is happening in the House and in the debate generally about Kosovo is that the international community and NATO are being spoken of interchangeably. This raises concerns for us because whatever NATO is, it is not the international community. It should not pretend to speak for the international community.

That raises concerns about what is going on inside the collective mindset of NATO. I was at the last two NATO parliamentarian meetings in Barcelona in the spring of last year and in Edinburgh in the fall of last year. One thing that concerned me then, and I wrote about it at that time, was that I could see NATO making a bid in its own mind to replace the UN as the policeman of the world, so to speak.

We see here a manifestation of that. It is a manifestation we have supported, only to the extent that we felt the situation was urgent, that something needed to be done, and that NATO was the only organization with the capacity to do anything about it at the moment. We do not do it with any support whatsoever for what may be in the minds of some NATO planners or subliminally in the collective consciousness of NATO, which is that it is in fact to replace the UN as the enforcer of international law. That would ultimately be very hypocritical and could well be interpreted as fitting into a larger American plan to degrade the status of the United Nations, which they have systematically done by not paying their dues, and by generally calling the reality and credibility of the United Nations into disrepute.

There are a lot of things here that ought to be of concern to Canadians while at the same time we all join together in knowing why we made the decision we did.

We also need to be open to changing our minds, to responding to the newness of the situation or to failure, to the fact that what we are now doing does not appear to be working. I would urge that open-mindedness upon the government and ask it not to be too NATO fixated and always be looking for the solution. Of course, as we have said over and over again, the solution will involve bringing the Russians into the loop and into the process.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I recommend to the hon. member a number of books both on Kosovo and Bosnia written by Noel Malcolm. I say that because perhaps we are not as up on our history as we should be.

I have concerns about the hon. member's comments. I do not believe he appreciates or gives credit for what Canada and NATO have done. Somebody had to step in. We know what happened in the first world war when the League of Nations was not in a position to step in. A few countries went forth. Canada was one of them.

I do not know if there is ever a perfect solution, but I know that when China does not agree to the renewal of peacekeepers in Macedonia we have a situation where NATO is unable to act.

We should have some appreciation for what Canada and NATO have done. It would be nice if we would have some criticism of Milosevic's regime. I get the sense that there is more criticism coming from that side of the House directed at NATO and directed at our efforts than at what is happening on the ground in the former Yugoslavia.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of cheap, jingoist, patriotic crap that I just do not have any tolerance for.

I do not think we need to debate among ourselves about whether or not we are on the side of Mr. Milosevic. We are all very much against Mr. Milosevic and what he is doing. I thought we lived in a democracy and we did not check our brains in at the door when we walked into the chamber of the House of Commons. I thought we could offer some intelligent criticism of the position that we collectively and unanimously took and reflect on it without having this kind question put to me.

The hon. member says we ought to know our history. He talks about the League of Nations not being able to act and that was why we had the first world war. The League of Nations was not created until after the first world war. The hon. member should get it straight. He should not lecture me on history if he does not even remember when the League of Nations was created. Then he talked about the China veto—

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I will not have the hon. member misrepresent the League of Nations.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

That is not a point of order. That is debate.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have experienced this hon. member before and his inaccuracies far outnumber anything useful that he might ever have to say.

He also talked about the China veto keeping NATO from acting. It was the China veto that kept the UN from acting. That is a problem and it is something that we pointed to in our speeches today. We have a problem at the United Nations.

NATO is made up of 19 countries, some of them the most powerful countries in the world. Instead of using the incapacity of the UN as a reason for expanding its own role in the world, one of the things NATO could have been doing for a long time is playing a role at the UN in reforming the UN so that the UN itself could act. But one of the major leaders in NATO, the United States, has done exactly the opposite. Instead of saying that it has a problem in the United Nations with the vetoes on the security council, and the difficulty it has in acting, so let us reform the UN, the U.S. has basically walked away from the UN and tried to create its own institution for the enforcement of international law. In this case that appears to have become NATO. That is one of the concerns we have. I think it is a valid concern and it is a concern expressed by a lot of people who have a great deal of respect for international law. They see the dangerous precedent that has been set or that could be set.

The action by NATO could go two ways. It could be a breakthrough by which we set a precedent, albeit this time with the wrong institution, NATO, whereby we declare that human rights violations happening within sovereign nations are no longer beyond the reach of the international community, or it could be a breakaway on the part of NATO by which it seeks to establish itself as the policeman of the world. That would be a mistake and would set precedents that would be used by other super powers that we would not find very attractive.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg—Transcona for sharing his time with me.

I would like to start by pointing out that history has shown us one thing that we should all be conscious of today, which is that federations are the hardest form of government in the world to try to keep together and to keep stable. By their very nature they are thrown together by a disparate bunch of states or provinces, often with very different and competing interests and points of view. They are usually thrown together voluntarily to form federations.

However, what many people do not realize is that there are less than 20 federations in the world. In fact there are far less. India would probably be the largest. The United States would be the wealthiest and the most powerful. But even the United States only lasted 75 years before blowing itself up into a massive civil war. We we can see the tensions that exist within federal states.

Currently, of those federal states that exist in the world, three of them are in the process of self-demolition. The U.S.S.R. is all but gone from its former incarnation. The former Yugoslavia has gone in recent years. The third is Canada, which is at risk of being split apart by disparate forces. There is a western separatist party pulling it in one direction and an eastern French separatist party pulling it in another.

As we review the turmoil in Kosovo it is good for us to pause to reflect on some of the lessons that can be learned: how fragile the institution of any federal state is; the collective will that it takes to hold it together, in spite of all the competing forces; and how violent and destructive it can be to all concerned if we weaken in our collective will to hold it together. It can shatter, dissolve or blow up like we are seeing in the current situation.

For some time now Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has pursued with vengeance his vision of a greater Serbia. He has ruthlessly suppressed the rights of the other former states within Yugoslavia. After Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia gained their independence, only Montenegro and Serbia remained, with Kosovo, a province within Serbia.

Kosovo's population is 90% ethnic Albanian, as we have been reminded by other speakers. In 1989 Milosevic ended their autonomy and tried to suppress their language and culture. The world stood by as over 200,000 people died in Bosnia. It was not until after the bombing in Sarajevo and the horrors of the concentration camp at Srebrenica that NATO finally intervened. It is significant to note that the United Nations did not intervene.

It is important to remember that before NATO struck its first bomb over 225,000 Kosovo Albanians had already been burned out of their homes. For the west not to have acted after so many final warnings to Milosevic would have sent him and other despots the signal that they could terrorize their own populations and commit crimes against humanity without the world taking action. The notion that national sovereignty and sovereign immunity can act as a shield to genocide and to crimes against humanity is finally under significant challenge by the international community.

It is significant to note again that Pinochet is now being tried. The international criminal court is being created, in spite of U.S. opposition. In this context it is most enlightening to read the words of the former leader of the NDP, Tommy Douglas, in 1945 in his disagreement with another former leader of the CCF, J.S. Woodsworth. Those two had a disagreement over Woodsworth's pacifist stand on world war two. At that time Tommy Douglas said that when a group of lawless men endeavour to destroy the fabric of law and order by which alone human society is possible, then we have a responsibility to discharge.

As the immigration critic for the NDP I will limit most of my remarks to the impact that the Kosovo tragedy is having on the refugees and the people who may end up taking refuge in this country. It is helpful to start with a list of some of the current numbers.

As I said, the population of Kosovo is 90% ethnic Albanian. Of a total of 1.956 million people in Kosovo, more than 1.6 million are ethnic Albanians. Displaced from Kosovo homes in the last year, by NATO's own numbers, were 912,000 people. Fled or expelled since NATO began its air attacks were 450,000 people. So of those 912,000, 450,000 have fled in the last 19 days. It is easily the largest movement of displaced people in Europe since the second world war, causing unbelievable challenges to the neighbouring states to which these people are fleeing.

As the immigration critic for the NDP I have maintained all along that the most significant contribution Canada could make in this whole tragedy is not to be adding our meagre contribution to the military effort. I really believe that the world's super powers which are involved with NATO can easily handle the physical bombing of Milosevic's army. I believe and have maintained all along that Canada's contribution should be concentrated solely on the humanitarian side of the effort. I have advocated since March 24 that we should be airlifting Kosovar refugees into this country. I called for that in a press release which I issued on March 27. Canada should respond to the enormous flood of Kosovo refugees with a massive airlift similar to that which brought Hungarians to this country in 1956.

I made the argument that with thousands of refugees literally flooding across the border into Albania, the neighbouring states simply cannot handle it and nobody on the ground is guaranteeing the safety of these people as they flee the conflict zones.

I wrote a letter to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration shortly thereafter, on March 31, asking her to allow, through special ministerial permit, Kosovar refugees to come to this country because the groundswell of interest was really gaining momentum in my community and in many others.

We called upon the minister to use whatever means necessary, even if it meant creating a special category for these people, to allow them to seek refuge here; not to make them Canadian citizens, but simply to allow them sanctuary and safe refuge until they are able to return to where they properly belong.

The critics of this idea said that we would be playing into Milosevic's hands by helping him to cleanse his area, although I am trying to avoid the term ethnic cleansing. As the member for Halifax West correctly pointed out, it is not a term we should be using.

I disagree with the argument that we would be playing into Milosevic's hands. I believe that one of Milosevic's strategies is to destabilize the neighbouring states by flooding them with refugees in order to expand a greater Serbia by causing instability in those neighbouring states so that he could undertake some type of coup. We would actually be undermining this nefarious scheme by relieving the pressure on those states.

The second thing that the critics pointed out was the cost. Certainly there is a cost, but what is the cost of undertaking the military intervention that we are taking part in now? The six CF-18s stationed in Italy alone cost $212 million a year. That is for six airplanes. We now have 12 over there. Every bomb costs $25,000. The cost is unbelievable. As well, money would be spent in this country if these people were brought here.

I believe that all the preparations that have been made to accommodate Kosovar refugees in this country will still be used. Now that the Easter ceasefire has ended we anticipate an escalation in the expulsion and a further flood of refugees crossing the border. I believe that we will still need all the hospitality that Canadians expressed and all the preparations that we have made on the military bases.

I fully anticipate that Canada will be able to show its generosity and its hospitality by welcoming these new Canadians to this country, for sanctuary at least, and with all the hope and optimism that some or many will choose to become Canadians citizens.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleague who sits on the citizenship and immigration committee that Canada originally wanted to take 5,000 refugees. As a matter of fact, everything was in place to do that. However, we were told by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Her Excellency Sadako Ogato, that they wanted to keep the Kosovars close to their former homeland.

The member made reference to the Hungarian revolution and the refugees that Canada took during that period of time. Let me tell the member, I know a lot about that. I was a refugee who came to Canada in 1957. Certainly the reception and the help we received from Canadians is remembered and appreciated and we try to give back in that regard.

Let me tell the hon. member that the nice difference I think with the Kosovar situation is that we are hoping the people of Kosovo will be able to go home. If there is any rainbow on the horizon, it is the fact that we are hopeful that things will resolve themselves as soon as possible. I think that all members of the House will pray for that and work toward that.

Once that happens, then the people can return to their homeland. I think the member would agree that is much more optimistic than was the case with the Hungarian refugees in 1957 who had no place to go. It was not until 1990 that the iron curtain fell.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very valid point. However, I do not have the same optimism that the Kosovar refugees will be able to return to their homes in the near future.

It is not unusual for refugees to find themselves in refugee camps for weeks, months and years. I recently hired a Vietnamese woman who spent two years sleeping on a dirt floor in a refugee camp, waiting to come to Canada, with 60,000 other Vietnamese refugees.

There are two reasons for which I do not think the Kosovar refugees will be able to return home. The first is the indication of how sinister and calculating the Milosevic Serbian government is being in its clearing of people. As it throws people out of their homes, whether they are torched or not, the land titles are torn up, as well as other documents such as birth certificates and any reference that this family ever existed in the community. It will be very difficult for Kosovars to claim ownership of their own land in eight weeks, two years or whenever.

Second, those refugees who have been lucky enough to get access to telephones have been phoning their old phone numbers in Kosovo and the phones are being answered by Serbian families who have already moved into the homes that the refugees vacated only weeks ago. The Serbian families are getting firmly entrenched into the communities and are claiming squatters' rights or legal ownership of those homes.

I do not think it is will be possible for the 900,000 displaced people to simply reclaim their homes. This leads me to believe that if not now but in the very near future there will be a great demand for safe refuge, sanctuary and maybe even new homes for many of the displaced people. I know Canadians will be willing to do what they can because they have indicated that in very large numbers already.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time. I have listened to the debate throughout most of the day. Like many members and other Canadians I have learned quite a bit about the breadth of the issues that are facing Canada along with its NATO allies.

As all members have been exposed to feedback from their constituents, I thought I would start by sharing a couple of the experiences of my constituents. One person who is quite active in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has written to me often on matters such as the Kosovo conflict.

It is very interesting that these communications have indicated that the military aggression now taking place has actually exacerbated the situation and further instability in the Balkan region. This is a complex situation which has baffled negotiators for centuries. The situation has arguably led to two world wars. Some would argue that it could potentially lead to another one. They go on to argue what to expect with regard to a peaceful resolution to conflict around the world.

It is very important for those who fear the ravages of war around the world, its impact on people and human lives, to be heard. I want them to know that they are being heard, that they have been heard by me and by many members.

A Serbian family came to me who was so distraught with what was going on that it immediately wanted to make application to sponsor its parents to come to Canada. In fact they were already in Canada under a visa and thought it would be appropriate to find out if I might be able to make that happen.

As all members know it just does not happen that way. It is a process that is very difficult particularly when someone is already here on a visa. The concern was for no other reason than family. It was not an ethnic dispute but a matter of safety and security of family.

The piano store owner across the street from my constituency office was born in Yugoslavia and lived there most of his life. He came here with his family. He wanted to thank Canada for what it was doing over there. He knew what was happening. He knew the history and he told me all about it. Despite the fact that he knew there were people in harm's way, he wanted me to know that it was important that we break this cycle, the centuries of ethnic wars and the killing of innocent people.

A Serbian gentleman came to my office and gave me quite a lecture about the centuries of history of the area. His basic conclusion was that it was their turn, that many Serbians had died over the years and that they had to get even. It was as bald as that. It was their turn to kill somebody.

It dawned on me that in Canada we have probably very diverse opinions about what is going on, depending on one's background, depending on one's linkages to the Balkans, to European countries and to other places around the world that have experienced civil war, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Unfortunately this is part of our history.

Listening to the debate today makes me ask more questions and maybe provide more answers. It was clear that ethnic cleansing was going on as far back as 14 months ago. In October of last year it was even written about in the papers while negotiations were being held to somehow bring this matter to some stability, and it did not happen.

For the last 20 days the NATO alliance has been executing a military plan, a bombing plan. I wonder why NATO waited as long as it did. I wonder if that was not a big mistake. When we consider the number of people, the number of refugees that moved so quickly to the borders and literally overwhelmed the NATO allies in terms of sheer numbers, it was clear that NATO was not ready for that number of people.

It was also a big surprise that some 250,000 refugees are still within Kosovo. There is grave concern about their safety. They have no shelter. They have no food. Who knows what their fate is? This raises some very serious questions about what is going on.

Canadian people responded to a poll recorded in today's press about their degree of support for the current actions of the government. It surprised a lot of people, probably the defence department and the foreign affairs department as much as any. It was no surprise that Canadians had opened up their hearts to the refugees and wanted to help in whatever way possible.

I think it is a big mystery to Canadians why refugees ultimately did not want to come to Canada. It begs a question. The linkage is to the strength of feelings in the Balkans. Canadians are having some difficulty understanding why people who are in harm's way and literally without food and shelter would not accept a helping hand and come to the safety of Canada.

It is difficult to understand. We need to understand that there is something more to this situation than simply a civil war. There is something much more when we see Serbian demonstrators daily in downtown Toronto, for the most part peacefully demonstrating but fervently stating that their situation is such that we must have the bombing stopped because their families are in harm's way.

Most people would ask whether they are also concerned about ethnic Albanians. I am sure stories will be coming out of the atrocities, of the rapes, of the murders and of the slaughters of people. Are they not also concerned about that? No. They are concerned about their families and it being their turn.

When we hear such things we wonder how Canadians will feel when the dimensions of what has happened become public, when we find out how bad the situation is and how many people have been affected by the situation even in the short period of time.

In the last moments of my speech I want to dwell on the whole issue that has been raised in the House about having a vote. It struck me that the Reform Party, for instance, wants to know the military, political and moral objectives and dimensions so that we can debate them and have a vote on them before we do something. I believe the NDP is of the same view, that we have to vote. We may have to ease up on some of the NATO requirements before we feel we have an opportunity to bring the negotiators back to the table.

I found out today that the vote being asked for, at least by the NDP, is not a vote and debate before the government takes action. NDP members made it very clear that they wanted to have a vote after the government had made its decision and after action was been taken by NATO. They just want a vote so that in retrospect they can put their position on the table after a decision has been taken.

It is very important to know that because that is not the way it was presented to the House. It was presented that before the government took action we wanted to have a say and a vote. It is important for Canadians to know that strategically and militarily it would be somewhat foolish to have the House debate the dimensions of a proposed action.

[Grant McNally, Reform, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to raise a question about what my Liberal colleague mentioned toward the end of his speech about a vote in the House of Commons. He mentioned the New Democratic Party and ourselves. It is very clear that in question period yesterday the call for a vote was in reference to deployment of future troops should that be necessary. That is what the question was about. That is what opposition parties were asking about. It was quite clear.

The member said that he was listening to the debate. He must have missed some of it because it was clearly stated that members of the opposition were not asking for a vote on the motion before the House today. They were simply asking that the government put to a vote the issue of whether or not ground troops should be deployed, or if that question were to arise that it be debated fully in the House and that a vote be held not as a partisan issue of opposition versus government but as an issue on which all members could debate and, I would anticipate, strongly support the government in doing that as an issue of process.

Would the member comment on that specific and not go back into history and reiterate something that was not stated by members of the opposition in the New Democratic Party or in the Reform Party? Does he think that it would be a good thing, should the time come where ground troops are necessary, to have an open debate in the House and then to put it to a vote? Then there could be a gathering together of members and of public opinion on the issue to which he referred in his speech.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member will remember this months from now when we reflect on what happened. It shows precisely how little Reform Party members understand strategic military activity, how little they understand being part of an alliance in a war.

The member honestly believes that in a middle of a war we should be thinking of going back to the legislators and having a debate. As one of his colleagues said, they should be told the moral, political and military dimensions so they can have a big debate. Then there will be a vote on it to determine whether or not to take the next strategic military step.

If we had done that it would no longer be strategic. It would no longer be an element of military activity. We cannot have that debate before it is done. We cannot do that in the middle of a war. The member does not understand that, but the NDP does. If the member would talk to NDP members he would understand what they were asking for. If, as and when ground troops are used in the Kosovo conflict and Canada participated, they are asking for a vote in the House after the fact on whether or not they agreed with the government's action.

The Reform Party is suggesting that somehow the vote would be taken before taking action. The NDP vote would be a vote after the government has taken action and it is a matter of whether or not a confidence in the government's action would be taken. That is the difference between the Reform Party and the NDP.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is 3.16 a.m. and we still have members in the House. We are debating for the third time the situation in the former Republic of Yugoslavia.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration documented some of the humanitarian responses from Canadians and put forth our generosity as well as our concerns.

The Prime Minister spoke in the House. He stated “I look forward today to hearing the views and concerns from members on all sides of the House because whatever our individual views are about involvement in Kosovo, we are each guided by our desire to do the right thing for Canada and for the international community”. The Prime Minister talked about taking great pride in the efforts and the work of our forces as well as that of government and non-government organizations that are on the front lines.

On occasions such as this I retreat to one of my favourite places in this building. The memorial chamber, where the names of the Canadian war dead are listed, puts in real perspective the issues we are dealing with.

Debates such as this one have a very personal meaning for me. Tonight bombs are falling less than 100 kilometres from where I was born. Tonight hundreds of thousands of Kosovars are without homes, without identity cards and often without their loved ones.

I know their fears for they were my fears four decades ago when Soviet tanks stamped out freedom in my former homeland. That year in Hungary, 1956, for a brief moment we had hope that help would come, but it did not. Many had hope that help would come but it did not. I think of those who died that year in Hungary, later in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rwanda and the killing fields of Cambodia. Those unspeakable crimes occurred after we said never again.

Last week we saw the crowded trains crammed with refugees without identity cards or belongings. We had seen those trains before on the way to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. People on those trains told us of atrocities occurring in the heart of Europe not far from those death camps that we thought we would never see again.

This time it is different. Help will come. Canada in partnership with our allies will not let Slobodan Milosevic and the evil he represents escape responsibility for his crimes.

The leader of the New Democratic Party spoke eloquently about Tommy Douglas' speech in 1939 when the second world war occurred. There were those in the ranks of his party who said what happened in Europe did not matter to Canada. Mr. Douglas said that when the lawless destroy the basic principles of human order and decency, Canada cannot step aside. Many others at that time did and the League of Nations was unable to act. But Canada and a few others stepped forward to confront the fundamental evil that fascism represented. Thank God they did.

Each year on Armistice Day all of us pay tribute to our veterans for fighting so bravely in a war that we are proud to have fought. We defeated fascism and in the aftermath of war, we built a more just society in Canada itself, one that respects basic human rights and freedoms.

This year our soldiers are fighting again to defeat a fascist mentality that feeds ethnic hatred. We fought before to defeat those who hated and killed Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and newspaper editors who would not agree.

What we hear from Belgrade today is all too familiar, all too dangerous. In September 1996 I observed elections in Bosnia in the historic city of Mostar. I saw too many fresh flowers on gravesites. My interpreter, Igor, showed me the grave of his best friend Boris who was killed in 1994 at the age of 20. His parents brought flowers to his gravesite every day.

I have heard others say that NATO is going too far. I ask who else has come forward? United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that sometimes it is necessary to use force when those who use brutal violence against their own people defy compromise.

The United Nations could not act. The Chinese even vetoed the extension of the United Nations force in Macedonia. There was no hope that the United Nations would have acted.

We must remember that the United Nations offered compromises and failed. NATO offered compromises and failed. Milosevic lied to his emissaries while he prepared his bloody and criminal attack on Kosovo.

Should we fail, the alternatives are unthinkable. Could we accept Milosevic's sneer of triumph? Could we accept that he could ethnically cleanse over a million people? If we end our century that way, what hope do we have for the future?

I remember the fall of 1956 when we hoped for help which never came. I know how Kosovars feel this evening as they hope to return to their homes, their families and their communities. This time we can offer hope. We can confront evil. We can make the worst horrors of this century a thing of the past, not a forecast of the new century's future.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly share the member's feelings that everyone's first choice is that the ethnic Kosovars end up going back to their own homes. As I outlined, there could be some obstacles in that records are being torn up, land titles are being burned. As the member said, even IDs such as birth certificates are being seized to make it harder for them and to further destabilize the region.

A second problem exists. As a previous speaker pointed out, we have underestimated the level of animosity. Some of the refugees are so seized with the idea of going back and reclaiming their homeland that they are turning down an opportunity that would actually be better for their families, to get their families out of harm's way, get them to a safe sanctuary like Canada even if just temporarily. It indicates the level of animosity and even hatred between those two camps. Most Canadians, unless they have been there and I have not been there, probably underestimate that.

What level of interest does the member have in pushing to have more of the ethnic Kosovars taken from the area where they are in imminent danger or living in unsatisfactory refugee camps and having them come here, providing them safe refuge and ultimately hoping that many will choose to make Canada their home and settle here?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. member that there are horrible challenges facing Canada, NATO and the United Nations.

On the upside, there is the whole issue of identification which is being looked at now and identifications are going to be issued. That is good because now is the time they can gather the information and make cross-references and issue truly verified identification.

After the war, Europe was devastated and rebuilding began. I am hoping the same will happen in Kosovo once the situation stabilizes.

Canada is ready to welcome refugees, be it on a temporary or full time basis. The minister has said that. We are hearing from the people in Kosovo that they would rather remain close to their homeland. I am hopeful and I believe the rest of the House is hopeful that their dreams and aspirations will be realized.

Let me talk about what is so beautiful and magical about this country. Every religious group and every ethnic group inhabits this land called Canada. We are able to use our diversities as strengths.

The real tragedy and scary thing for us is looking over there and seeing how diversity is used as a weakness to be exploited by very unscrupulous people. It is something we have to fight against continually. We have to do whatever we can to stabilize the situation there. It is not just Kosovo. We have to look at what is happening in Bosnia and Hercegovina. We have people on the ground keeping peace, making sure that various ethnic groups are working together as much as possible and certainly stopping ethnic cleansing and stopping crimes based on ethnicity.

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kings—Hants.

As immigration critic for the PC party, it is incumbent upon me to make a few remarks on the human tragedy that is Kosovo. I am very pleased that this debate is taking place. I must say that sitting here for the last 17 hours, since 10 o'clock Monday morning, I am beginning to learn a little bit about what is a very complicated issue.

I want to say as well that I question the usefulness of conducting such an important debate at three and four o'clock in the morning when most reasonable people are asleep, instead of at a time when they can conveniently hear what we have to say. But such is the way of politics.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a few remarks on this very important issue. Every day on television we see a tide of Kosovar Albanians trudging to refuge outside their homeland leaving behind their burning villages and their friends and relatives who have been spirited away or even executed by Serbian security forces. Over the past number of years we have seen similar scenes in Croatia and Bosnia, but the sheer speed and magnitude of the current exodus has riveted the world's attention.

There are two aspects to the crisis which I want to address, the refugee situation and the military situation. With regard to the Kosovo refugees, I am pleased that Canada was willing to accept and make preparations to take in 5,000 of these very unfortunate people. As a nation whose involvement there is driven by humanitarian concerns, we could not do less. The minister indicated that the government was willing to set aside approximately $100 million for that purpose.

Now that the United Nations has expressed a preference for those refugees to stay in their region, I do hope that the majority of these funds can be redirected to relief efforts on the ground in Europe. However, today in question period the minister did not answer my question as the availability of these funds. Rather, the Minister of International Affairs spoke of the $22 million her department had spent so far.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration also stated, in answer to another question, that our proposed airlift of 5,000 refugees would not be necessary because the situation on the border had stabilized. However, we hear that the Yugoslavs have shelled Albania and refugees continue to pour out of Kosovo.

I also have concerns about the fact that we appear to have been caught off guard with respect to our position on the Kosovar refugees. On Friday, April 2 our position was that we would not be accepting refugees from Kosovo. The following day we were ready to accept 5,000. On April 9 we were only accepting refugees with special needs under ministerial permit. Yesterday our special envoy in Kosovo said we are talking about immigration, not temporary protection. It is rather confusing.

The point I am trying to make is that we should have known the likely result of military intervention and that the refugee exodus would likely accelerate. We appear to have been caught off guard as far as the refugees are concerned. If the basis for our military intervention was humanitarian, then surely government planners should have seen that there was a role for our refugee and immigration officials as well.

The minister has indicated that she will be issuing ministerial permits for refugees with special needs. One has to ask what that mean in practical terms. Are we talking about people with special medical needs? Are we talking about the adoption of orphans and the reunification of families? Are we talking about potential new immigrants who will need language training and a host of other settlement services?

Have arrangements been made with the provincial and municipal governments delivering health and various social services in Canada? Will some of that $100 million be used to fund any extraordinary costs incurred by these local agencies and governments?

These are all very legitimate questions and Canadians have a right to expect clear answers.

We pride ourselves on being a compassionate nation, but in order to do a good job we need to approach these issues in an organized way. Compassion without the necessary ways and means only raises expectations unfairly. Surely these people have already suffered enough.

The other situation about which I am concerned is our military position in all of this. It is regrettable that we did not get to debate this matter before the air force was committed to go in and fight. The bottom line is that we are now embroiled in a military conflict overseas.

Many military experts, who we hear talking on TV about this particular issue, feel that this will inevitably lead to the involvement of ground troops. While polling would seem to indicate that a majority of the Canadian public currently support the government's position, one has to ask if that opinion would hold if we get into an all out war in the hills and mountains of Kosovo, a war that would inevitably lead to casualties on all sides.

As one Canadian, I have grave concerns about the way we seem to have gotten into a conflict without a long term view of the consequences. I need not remind the House that this region of Europe tied down many Nazi divisions during World War II in a grinding war of attrition with terrible atrocities committed on all sides. We have already seen earlier examples of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia, with enough blame and blood to go around for all. I therefore have to ask the question: Are we up for this, both psychologically and militarily? There is no doubt that during World War II we were involved in a total war.

I have every confidence in the professionalism of our armed forces, but I fear the government has presided over our military being reduced in numbers and is sadly lacking in equipment to do the job.

We cannot play at war. NATO is now committed and has very little choice but to follow through on its commitments. In the Vietnam war we saw what it was like to fight a war wherein the daily targets were decided in the White House and not in the Pentagon. The result was a war that dragged on for years.

No matter if we call this a conflict or a war, we had best be clear about our objectives and have the will to do what is necessary. We cannot forget that the Yugoslav leadership will be ruthless in its use of military and paramilitary forces. We must not send our soldiers and our airmen into harm's way with one arm tied behind their back.

It is sad that Canada, once a leader in world affairs and champion of the United Nations peacekeeping, is now caught up in this conflict. However, now that the dye is cast we had best get serious about our humanitarian and military roles in Kosovo.

The Canadian people are a good people. They deserve better leadership in this crisis than what we have seen so far. It is time for the government to hold parliamentary debates on these matters before our troops are put in harm's way. It is time for the government to make clear our objectives and our ways and means of carrying out our various roles in the escalating conflict and humanitarian disaster.

In short, we should discuss our duty, define our duty and fulfill that duty with all of the determination and pride that has served us so well in the past.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, many will want to speculate about how this war will play out over the next while.

The NATO conditions are: that Slobodan Milosevic stop the killing and expelling of ethnic Albanians; that he withdraw his army and guarantee refugees a safe return to their homes; that he permit an international presence for the security of those people; and that he sign a binding peace settlement as per the interim agreement.

I am sure the member would agree that there is very little likelihood that Milosevic will eventually accept those conditions. He probably will not agree to withdraw his army nor accept the NATO force as the peacekeeping force there. Given that is the case, I think it would be reasonable to speculate that the possibility of ground troops is very high and that NATO forces have to be prepared to act.

The member suggested we should be careful about putting our military in harm's way. He probably knows that they are already in harm's way. They are flying sorties and are subject to anti-aircraft fire now. They also know that Canada is prepared to participate to the extent that it can. It will also not deploy troops who are not well prepared to do their jobs the way they should to do done.

Is the member seriously thinking that somehow the House has to suspend the war in Kosovo and come back to parliament to discuss again whether or not we should deploy ground troops, or would he not agree that is exactly what we have been talking about in this debate that started yesterday at 3 p.m.?

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we are very much aware that the military is already in harm's way, but the possibility of casualties will be so much greater if we send in ground troops.

The official position of our party is that we will support sending in ground troops to Yugoslavia if that is the only means by which peace and stability can be achieved in that particular area.

However, many more military casualties will occur if we do send in ground troops. Many military experts feel that it will inevitably lead to casualties. While opinion polls now support the government in its efforts so far, I am just wondering if the opinion and support of the Canadian people will hold once ground troops go in and they see the inevitable casualties.

We on this side of the House support the involvement of ground troops, if that is the only way to achieve peace and stability, but we also feel strongly that such an action should not only be debated in the House of Commons but voted on as well. That is what we support.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great concern that I rise today to speak about the important issue of Canada's involvement in NATO's intervention in Kosovo.

This intervention is one of the riskiest ventures that NATO has ever participated in. The air strikes against Bosnian Serbs in 1995 were successful in many ways. In due course a treaty was signed which has since then worked fairly well. I visited Bosnia with the foreign affairs committee in the fall of 1997 and was able to see some of the success of the Dayton accord and the post-Dayton situation is relatively stable.

Canadian peacekeepers are respected globally. I saw first-hand the professionalism of the Canadian peacekeepers who were participating in the S-4 intervention in the former Yugoslavia. It really made me very proud to be a Canadian.

Periodic air attacks in Iraq by the U.S. have helped to prevent Saddam Hussein from committing some atrocities. He has still continued to flare up periodically and to commit atrocities against his own and other people, but the air strikes have helped somewhat.

This time, however, it is different. This is the first attack on a sovereign state that stands accused of vile behaviour not to its neighbours but to its own people. Where was NATO for instance when Russia tried to squelch the Chechnians at a cost of 100,000 lives? What did we do to try to prevent genocide in Rwanda in terms of significant interventions?

How would the west respond, for instance, if China were to carry out air strikes against an Indian government that was fighting to prevent a Muslim majority province such as Jammu-Kashmir from seceding, or if one country were to intervene in an other country's internal debates about issues of human rights or ethnic cleansing?

In Serbia, we are dealing with a better armed and more militarily sophisticated group than the Bosnian Serbs. It is in fact more militarily equipped and more sophisticated than latter day Iraq.

Hopefully, the smart bombs and the missiles can achieve victory without the use of ground troops. However, I think that is naive. I think the Canadian government, in creating an expectation that is possible, has misled many Canadians. Many military experts, including the supreme general of NATO and the U.S. military experts, have agreed with the view that ground troops will be necessary.

In Kosovo and Serbia the military targets and the civilians are inextricably linked. As my hon. colleague from St. John's East mentioned, the terrain in Kosovo is not conducive to effective air strikes.

NATO members are becoming increasingly uneasy. The goals of the air attacks were to end Serbia's brutalities against the ethnic Albanians, who make up nine-tenths of the population of Kosovo, and at the same time not break up the country. Yet in the first four days of NATO air attacks the number of Kosovars driven from their homes had risen to 500,000, one-quarter of the population. Up to 100,000 Kosovars have been killed.

By last week about 1.1 million of Kosovo's 1.8 million people had been driven out of their homes. NATO seemed unprepared. There was a chaotic response to the refugee issue. The response from Canadians at the grassroots level who wanted to help was very warm. I saw it in my own riding. To see Canadian non-governmental organizations such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army coming forward and individual Canadians offering to help reaffirmed my belief in the Canadian people. However, at the same time NATO and this government's participation in NATO did not seem prepared for the inevitable issue of the refugees.

While NATO has carried out the bombing, the Serb forces in Kosovo have continued ethnic cleansing. In fairness, this ethnic cleansing, these killings, would have taken place anyway. They would have taken place perhaps at a more leisurely pace than they have, but they would have taken place.

I received a petition today in my constituency office from a group in Wolfville. The petition states:

We want an immediate end to the bombings and a return to diplomacy and negotiation with the active involvement of the UN.

This group generally feels that the bombings have heightened a sense of nationalism and in fact have strengthened Milosevic. The group is right in a way because the bombings have strengthened the resolve of the Serbians and Milosevic's popularity is up. However, I believe that sustained bombing over a period of time could serve to sap morale and lead to the Serb population questioning Milosevic, making it more difficult for him to lead and defend what is an untenable position.

Perhaps Milosevic will give up the ungovernable province of Kosovo anyway, in the same way that he has given up territories in the past which he had previously said he would not give up. Part of Milosevic's strategy has always been to create a sense of martyrdom with the Serbs, to revel in this martyrdom and past defeats. He almost celebrates these defeats. It is possible that at some point he will give up at least some of his demands in relation to the Kosovo issue.

It is possible also that the Kosovar guerrillas will be effective on the ground against Serb soldiers in the same way that the Croat soldiers were during the NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serbs in 1995. We do not really know if the Kosovars have an effective soldiery now, but there is a risk that the Kosovar ground troops could get an upper hand. It will be very difficult for NATO to stop the Kosovar troops from butchering the Serb minority in Kosovo and declaring independence. That is an issue we have to look at as well.

The west does not want that. It does not want to break up Yugoslavia. It is not there for either side to win. It just wants security for the Kosovars, the ethnic Albanians.

Ground troops may be necessary. NATO currently has 12,000 troops in Macedonia. The Serbs have 40,000 troops in Kosovo. NATO would need about 150,000 troops for a decisive victory.

There would be many casualties and as mission creep evolved there would be comparisons with Vietnam. There are several NATO countries which might back out. Greece, Italy and the Czech republic are already lukewarm at best.

I believe that NATO was right in principle to intervene. We should not hide behind the antiquated 19th century notion of national security solely as a foreign policy imperative. The evolution of human security in the post-cold war environment is a very important evolution. There have been 100 conflicts in the post-cold war environment. Most of them have been interstate conflicts and most of those have been between governments and their own people.

We have seen the evolution of an international criminal court. We see cases like the Pinochet case. Leaders simply cannot get away with atrocities against their own people as they were able to do in the past.

We only need look back at the film footage of the liberation of some of the concentration camps at the end of World War II to realize that there were times in the past when we should have intervened and did not. Today more than ever, in the post-cold war environment, with the evolution of human security, there are times when we must act and I believe that this is one of those times.

However, there must be a new global framework that can work to avert crises by addressing them earlier through a concerted effort by the UN. I heard one member speak earlier about the involvement of the IMF and the World Bank. We could use diplomatic and economic levers and evolve some of the institutions, such as the Bretton Woods institutions, which need to be reformed to reflect current realities. Canada should play a leadership role in these fora and I am concerned that Canada is not maximizing its leadership as it should.

Even if we accept human security as an imperative, where do we draw the line? Where do we intervene and where do we not intervene? Are we prepared to intervene in the inevitability of ground troops? Is our Canadian military prepared? I fear that is not the case. The government has allowed the Canadian military to reach a crisis situation of its own in terms of equipment and personnel.

The bottom line is that these types of debates are very important. They should be accompanied by a vote. Certainly before we send ground troops to Kosovo it is very important that we have a full debate in the House, with a vote, to demonstrate unequivocally that not only are the members of the House unanimously committed to this very important humanitarian effort, but that Canadians value democracy enough to protect it within their own borders.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member made some interesting points, but he made a statement that I do not think was quite correct when he said that NATO members were becoming uneasy. From all of the reports and the press conference given by NATO today, following the meeting of the foreign affairs ministers of the NATO alliance, they are unanimous and are united in the efforts of the alliance.

The member also mentioned, and it is too bad the Speaker did not pick it up, misleading Canadians about ground troops. When Canada entered into this war with its fighter aircraft and put its military in harm's way there was nothing misleading about it. Canada has agreed to participate in this NATO effort because of its importance.

I know that the member appreciates the significance of what is happening over there, the significance of the atrocities and the fact that there is no logical conclusion to this situation on its own. There is nothing that is going to break this cycle of genocide and violence unless the NATO allies step in to protect lives.

My question really has to do with a vote. I am still looking for the answer as to how it is possible that the NATO alliance could suspend its activities and have its participating members go back to their countries to ask their governments and their legislators to have a debate on all of the details of their next move and then have a vote on it before they make the move. It sounds a bit foolish to me to suggest that somehow we are going to discuss military strategy and have a vote on it before it happens.

I would like the member to try to explain to me and to Canadians how exactly we are going to suspend a war while we consider what we are considering today.