Mr. Speaker, I will be brief because I know there are many who have comments and questions. I thank the hon. member for his very thoughtful remarks and his approach to this tragic situation.
This past weekend I attended a meeting in Vancouver hosted by End the Arms Race, over 300 deeply concerned people from many different walks of life including students, church leaders, labour activists and others. There was a lot of wisdom in that group. They were calling for an end to the bombing, an end to the ethnic cleansing and a return to negotiations.
Does the hon. member agree that it would be a valuable and important initiative by the Government of Canada to convene a meeting at an early date of civil society, of key partners from the church community and from the labour movement? I know Canadian Auto Workers has issued a very important statement with a number of concrete suggestions on how we might approach the situation. Today the Canadian Federation of Students issued a similar statement.
There is not just wisdom within the military and in the House. There is a lot of wisdom in the country, in civil society. It would be a valuable and important exercise to convene on an urgent basis a gathering in Canada of groups such as that to seek alternatives to the present approach which is merely, according to NATO, reaffirming today more bombing and more air attacks.