Mr. Speaker, today, we are debating a motion that is very democratic, reasonable and responsible.
This motion is asking members of parliament to vote on the opportunity to hold a vote on the sending of Canadian troops to Kosovo and the Balkan region. The motion before us applies to both combat troops and peacekeeping forces.
Today's debate may help us find out a little more about the government's intentions, about what is really going on, about its military planning and diplomatic initiatives. Our main problem, and this is the primary reason behind this motion, is that we sorely lack information. In fact, the government is providing such limited information that we are better informed by Newsworld and CNN.
The purpose of this exercise is not academic or hypothetical, as the Prime Minister claimed last week, in reply to our questions. The legitimacy of our request is evidenced by the dispatches published in newspapers yesterday and today, including The Sunday Observer , and alluding to preparations for a ground invasion of Yugoslavia toward the end of May.
In the leaflets that it recently dropped over the Yugoslav territory, NATO itself stated that an invasion would take place if Serbian forces did not leave Kosovo.
We are not the only ones asking that members of parliament vote on this issue. Many editorials in the country's major dailies are asking for the same thing.
For example, in its April 14 issue, the Montreal Gazette said that our soldiers deserve to know that their elected representatives are supporting them, adding that the Prime Minister was “badly wrong” in not allowing for a vote in the House of Commons.
On April 13, the National Post said that only a parliamentary vote would give the Prime Minister the moral authority to involve Canada in a ground war in the former Yugoslavia.
That same day, La Presse said that the government's refusal to hold a vote was creating a democratic deficit.
On Saturday, the editorial writer for Le Soleil said that fortunately the Bloc Quebecois would be forcing such a vote Monday—today—in the House of Commons.
Susan Riley, a Southam columnist, said that it would be better to abolish Parliament than put it through the travesty of consultation to which the government is now subjecting it.
There is something strange and disquieting about this whole business. From the beginning, the government seems to have been swept along by events. It seems to be making it up as it goes along. In fact, it is ironic to say the least that the Prime Minister, whose constant refrain has been the need for Canada to have a foreign policy that is separate from that of the United States, now seems to have fallen in completely with Washington.
We also have the right to wonder if Canadian troops might find themselves on the frontline because their humanitarian mission would be transformed into a combat mission. They could get involved in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia through the back door, without parliament having had a chance to vote on this issue.
Yesterday, the government announced that another six CF-18s would be sent to Italy, thereby tripling our initial participation.
This brings me to ask the Prime Minister a very simple question: how much will Canadian participation have to escalate before parliament is asked to vote on this issue?
Technically, Canada could be at war without parliamentarians having had a chance to vote on the matter. This seems rather inappropriate in a democratic society and a parliamentary democracy.
It seems even more inappropriate considering the fact that, in 1991, the Prime Minister, who was sitting on this side of the House as opposition leader, was clamouring for a vote in parliament on the issue of military operations against Iraq.
The Liberal leader said at the time that the government did not have, and I quote, “the moral authority to put this country into a war situation” since the House of Commons had not approved, through a vote, Canada's participation in Operation Desert Storm.
The same member, who is now Prime Minister, should be consistent since he is the one who said on January 15, 1991, and I quote:
The problem we all face is why the Prime Minister—
He was referring to Prime Minister Mulroney.
—has not chosen to ask the real question of the House today. This is the question with which the country is faced: Should Canadian troops participate in a war—
Today, the government is desperately seeking reasons not to have a vote on this issue and to object to our motion, which is totally reasonable.
For example, last week, we heard the Prime Minister say in response to our questions that he did not want to have a vote because it could show some dissension among us, which could be exploited by Milosevic's propaganda.
He used this ridiculous argument, knowing full well that almost all MPs support Canadian participation in an international intervention that will put an end to the crimes against humanity perpetuated by the Milosevic regime in Kosovo.
As well, a vote in the House, with the support of 90%, 95% or 98% of MPs, would lend far more authenticity to the government than the polls the Prime Minister refers to.
If there were any objections at all, they would be the normal outcome of a sound debate within a democratic assembly in which it is virtually impossible to achieve unanimity.
This House must hold a debate on this issue. We must set a democratic example for Milosevic, rather than an imposed and unverified unanimity. Democracy is our true strength, and Milosevic's main weakness.
I do not have much idea of what is going on within the Milosevic government, but I doubt very much that he is waiting anxiously on the outcome of a vote by the House of Commons in Ottawa to decide whether or not he will refuse to put an end to the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Holding a vote on sending troops to the Balkans has nothing to do with a vote of confidence toward the government, as the Prime Minister was stating in his roundabout way last week, nor is it the nonsense the House leader was calling it. Such statements are not a very good example for the people of Canada or of Quebec.
It is also wrong to claim, as the government House leader did a few days ago, that the motion before us implies that any troop movement, even a normal troop rotation, would have to be approved by parliament.
This is a ridiculous argument, and it shows just how deep the government side had to dig to find an excuse to oppose our motion.
Members, the elected representatives of the people, must have their say. Citing polls, as the Prime Minister did last week, is a travesty of parliament. The House of Commons is the expression of democracy. We do not take polls, we were elected to represent the people.
It is all the more logical for us to vote since the deployment of troops on Yugoslav soil was predictable from the outset.
From the time it became clear that the NATO air strikes would not bring President Milosevic to his knees, the Atlantic Alliance had three options. The first was the German peace plan, the diplomatic approach we must build on. The second was to add ground intervention to the air strikes in order to carry out the mission of ending the crimes of Milosevic in Kosovo. The third was to drop our objective, abandon the Kosovars and let President Milosevic complete the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, if not genocide. This would reinforce the aggression of the Milosevic government and encourage all the other tyrants and despots in the world.
The situation is clear. For the sake of consistency with the statements made in 1991 by those who, today, are the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the democratic spirit the media have summarized so well and to act on the will of the people, the government must allow MPs to vote on this. Canada's position and its participation, if it comes to that, will be the stronger for it.