Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in tonight's debate, but also a bit weary at having to do so, because it is always hard to address humanitarian crises that are not under control and that can lead God knows where.
For the benefit of our fellow citizens who might not have had the opportunity to follow the daily coverage of this crisis in the papers, I think it would be useful to give an overview of the situation.
On March 11, before NATO started its air campaign, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs. Sadako Ogata, estimated that more than 400,000 people had been forced to flee their homes since the beginning of the conflict in March 1998. Among them, 230,000 were displaced within Kosovo itself.
On March 24, the very day the air campaign started, Kosovar refugees totalled 450,000 people, including 260,000 inside Kosovo. In only 13 days, the number of displaced persons has increased by 30,000.
The last solution proposed by the Assembly was the international peace conference in Rambouillet, France. This conference ended in a peace plan which the Kosovars never signed. In a word, this peace plan extending over three years provided for a substantial level of autonomy for the Kosovars, but always within Yugoslavia.
Moreover, it provided for the deployment of NATO troops to ensure the enforcement of that plan. It is this last element that President Milosevic rejected, foreseeing the partition of Kosovo from Serbia at the end of the three years, and occupation of his territory by a foreign force.
It is therefore to put an end to the violence of the Serbian authorities against the Albanian population of Kosovo, which represents 80« of the total population, and to try and convince Milosevic to accept the Rambouillet accord, that NATO conducted air strikes against the Yugoslavian army.
It is essentially for the same reasons that Canada agreed to participate to the NATO'S Allied Forces operation. Canada also recognized that as long as this conflict was permitted to last, it could result in major humanitarian disasters and destabilise the whole region at the same time. This is why Belgrade's acceptance of the Rambouillet peace plan had become essential from a Canadian standpoint.
The Bloc Quebecois supported the NATO military intervention in Kosovo and Yugoslavia because it felt and indeed, like all the NATO countries, still thinks that it is better to try to do something in Kosovo than to let a situation that has been going on for 10 years continue to deteriorate.
But time is a very significant and legitimate time factor with respect to the air strikes in Yugoslavia. I questioned the Minister of National Defence about it in this House, but he did not answer. My first question was about the air strikes. I asked him how long they would go on—weeks, months perhaps—before any result can be achieved. Do NATO countries all agree to keep bombing Yugoslavia much longer before considering other options?
Mr. Speaker, members are presently having a private conversation near me and that bothers me. Would you please ask them to tone it down a little or to take their conversation somewhere else.