Madam Speaker, the motion before the House today is relatively straightforward. It calls on the government to commit itself to hold a debate and a vote prior to the commitment of any ground troops to the war in the Balkans.
There is really nothing odd about such a request. There is nothing controversial or partisan about this motion. It is consistent with the best democratic traditions this country can lay claim to.
What is odd is the fact that the government did not itself bring forth a votable motion on this issue. What is controversial is the government's repeated refusal to allow such a debate or vote to occur. That is what gets our constituents asking why the government will not let this go to a vote.
The refusal to allow the House to decide what the role of this country should be in a war is truly astonishing. Let there be no misunderstanding. The government does not have a mandate as a result of the three take note debates on Kosovo. Its claim that it has such a mandate are simply unacceptable and is certainly not why any of us participated in those take note debates.
In August 1914 this country was simply notified by the Governor General that it was at war. The decision was made in London. In September 1939 Canada waited 10 days to enter the second world war on the side of Britain and France, 10 days in which parliament debated and voted on the issue. On September 9, 1939 Prime Minister Mackenzie King accepted that the Commons should decide if Canada should go to war.
That has not happened in 1999. Our pilots have already flown more than 100 combat missions and the present government has repeatedly argued that we are not at war. That position is simply a word game and would please many of the lawyers here, but it certainly does not please the Canadian public. The man on the street, the members of this House and our adversaries in Yugoslavia see things a lot differently. They are calling this war.
In 1991 when we supported the UN coalition, this House also debated and voted on a resolution concerning Canadian military involvement. At that time the current Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Official Opposition, criticized the Mulroney government. I quote: “Really Canadians have had enough of these ambiguities and playing the dice on the table without telling Canadians exactly what the situation is. Should we have Canadians involved in war, yes or no?”
The high-minded principles so strongly endorsed just eight years ago seem to have been mere words, nothing more. They have apparently been forgotten by the Prime Minister. They have vanished like smoke in the political wind.
The foreign affairs minister is no more consistent. Before this House in 1991 he said: “My deepest concern is that they, the Tories, will be simply using parliament to try to rubber stamp or ratify decisions already taken, as opposed to letting parliament be the forum in which those decisions are formulated”. Last Thursday in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade he also appeared to forget his concern for this House. He argued that because this is not a republic, the crown retains the right to make foreign policy and to decide matters of war and peace.
Canadians might rightly ask what is the cause of this uncertainty? Why would ministers with such long parliamentary careers change their opinions so drastically? I will not try to offer any answers to those questions. Given this lack of certainty on the government benches, I would suggest we err on the side of democracy. It is, after all, what this country expects. We preach democracy abroad, we sell democratization to other countries, and we must practise it at home.
Eight years after the gulf war this country finds itself once again involved in a war. It does not really matter at this point in the debate that our current military intervention was not sanctioned by the UN. It does not really matter in our debate today if NATO's long term strategy is unclear. It does not really matter that we have no idea what the long term objectives of the current conflict are, beyond the basic moral considerations that my hon. colleague the Leader of the Opposition raised a week ago.
These issues are not the most pressing issues of the debate today. The government's arguments that we cannot debate something that has not yet happened is equally unimportant. This motion is to commit the government to a debate when and if the need to send ground troops should arise. A week, a month, whenever that should happen, we should have a vote in this House.
This motion is not about the war. It is about Canadian democracy. Because this issue is so important to our democracy is why I can strongly endorse this motion before us today. Despite the fact that I might disagree on many other Bloc ideas, certainly this is one we should commend it for.
This chamber is the House of Commons. It is the only place in the entire land that the elected representatives of the Canadian people can meet and debate the future of our country. This room, not the cabinet chamber, is the focal point for our democratic system of government. Here the government of the day must answer to the people through their elected members of parliament. Here the laws are made. Here the great issues that affect our people are supposed to be decided.
Before we send any ground troops to fight in distant lands, members of parliament must take a position. It is the only right thing we can possibly do. I do not want to ever stand accused by the parents, wives, husbands, children of our soldiers that I failed to take a stand in this House and ask all the questions that should be asked.
This government does not seem to want to understand these simple facts. The motion before us is not an attempt to embarrass the government. It is not about expressing confidence or lack thereof in the Prime Minister and his cabinet. It is quite simply a call for the government to respect the rights and privileges of parliament and to adhere to the most basic standards of Canadian democracy.
The precedents of 1939 and 1991 clearly and forthrightly demonstrate that matters of war and peace are not, I repeat not, the sole prerogative of the crown in this country. The Prime Minister and foreign affairs minister understood this in 1991. I am at a loss to explain why they have forgotten that fact in 1999.
The motion before us is several weeks overdue. The official opposition has been urging for some time the necessity of a vote in the House before Canada commits ground troops to the ongoing war in Kosovo. The other opposition parties have also agreed with us and have been urging the same thing. I commend my Bloc colleague again for having brought forward this motion today.
There is a saying that there is a time and a place for everything. The time for a votable motion on the deployment of ground troops to Kosovo is now and the place is in the House.