Mr. Speaker, as I speak in this House, NATO planes are carrying out air strikes against Serbian military targets in Yugoslavia and Kosovo.
At the international level, diplomats from around the world are trying to find a negotiated solution to Serbian attacks on Kosovo's Albanians.
In neighbouring countries, the staff of non governmental humanitarian assistance organizations are doing everything they can to facilitate the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees, whose numbers have been rising since the beginning of this crisis.
Here, however, no one can or wants to tell us whether or not the Canadian armed forces are getting ready to send ground troops to the Balkans.
Once again, this afternoon, the Minister of National Defence refused to indicate if senior officers were planning Canada's involvement in ground operations. These statements were not made a week ago. They were made today in answer to questions put by opposition members to the minister.
Earlier today, during question period, the Minister of National Defence said and I quote “The only thing I can confirm is the breakdown of Canadian troops already in the Balkans.”
When a minister refuses to provide clear answers to questions put by the opposition and uses carefully phrased statements—and that is a rather strong word—such as “the only thing I can tell you is”, one has to wonder if the government is not about to make a far reaching decision behind closed doors, without consulting parliament.
This is exactly what we want to avoid in this motion. The motion is clear. It says, and I quote:
That this House demand that the government submit to a debate and a vote in the House the sending of Canadian soldiers to the Balkans who may be involved in military or peacekeeping operations on the ground in Kosovo and the Balkan region.
Our goal is simple: we want such a decision, which may put the lives of fellow citizens at risk, to be taken in a transparent and democratic manner. Because the government has so far refused to commit itself to holding a vote before sending ground troops to the Balkans, we have no choice but to bring forward this motion, which asks this formally.
It is astounding that we have had to go this far something that just makes sense. A few people cannot decide alone to send Canadian ground troops to take part in a conflict that could still last for months.
We think that parliament must have a say in the Canadian policy regarding Kosovo. So far, the opposition parties supported the government's decisions in favour of air strikes against the Serbian aggressors in Kosovo, but that does not mean—