House of Commons Hansard #210 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was war.

Topics

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5:50 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs, if he wishes to respond.

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Liberal

Lloyd Axworthy Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to use this opportunity to respond to my hon. colleague. He asked what people in other democracies would think. In the United Kingdom, the mother of the parliamentary system, there were no debates or votes; in Belgium, no debates and no votes; in France, no debates and no votes; in the Netherlands, two debates and no vote; and in the United States of America it is a decision made by the president.

Under the circumstances there is the Canadian record of coming to the House for debate which authorized the mandate to participate in the Kosovo mission; a debate which authorized, through the expression of views of members of the House, a peacekeeping implementation; and a debate last Monday night that went into all hours of the morning. We had these briefings. I think Canadians can stand proud.

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Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, the foreign affairs minister has mentioned countries where there has not been a vote. I could mention one where members voted twice, and that country is Germany, the peace plan sponsor.

Canada could have shown leadership and put the matter to a vote in the House.

When members change sides in the House, they tend to forget certain things. I wonder if the minister will recall the following statement “As we now stand, in the present situation we are looking at very long-protracted sanctions in the gulf—which could take months. We are looking at a very major military build-up... and we are looking at a potential military option. We would like to get some assurance specifically from the government that we will not engage in any offensive action in this region unless there is a consent of parliament”. This is a quote from the current foreign affairs minister.

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Liberal

Lloyd Axworthy Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, this is what the parliamentary process is designed to do: to give parliament an opportunity to state its position and consensus in debate.

I repeat that 100 members of this House have expressed their opinion, and that we have had a 26-hour debate and three briefing sessions for members. It is a great example of what I said 10 years ago.

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NDP

Gordon Earle NDP Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, the hon. minister mentioned that the only vote before was to endorse a UN resolution. We would certainly welcome that. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would ask the minister if he would use Canada's seat on the security council to formally present a uniting for peace resolution to get this matter before the General Assembly of the United Nations. Then we might have something to vote on by way of endorsing that resolution.

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Liberal

Lloyd Axworthy Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and I have had some very good exchanges about this matter over the last week or so. That is a demonstration of how parliament can work, of how members of the opposition can make their contributions and recommendations known.

I simply point out to the hon. member that today the secretary general appointed a special representative. He has been working assiduously to try to develop a resolution of the security council. Why that? It is because under the charter an article 7 resolution does carry a broad mandate that will apply to all members. If we can achieve that, and there is a lot of work going into it, it would clearly be the preferable option. That is what we are backing right now. That is why we are working so hard along with the secretary general.

As I said to the hon. member, if it does not work then the kind of recommendation he is making should be actively considered. Let us give the best shot we have right now to help the secretary general.

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Reform

Lee Morrison Reform Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if you would be kind enough to define for us the meaning of the term rubber stamp parliament. I think the hon. minister might like—

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5:55 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I think the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands knows that the Speaker does not offer definitions.

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Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the foreign affairs minister for being in the House to listen to my speech. I know that he came straight from his office specially to listen to me. I am glad he did because I will remind him of some of his famous statements. I quoted one a few minutes ago but I will repeat it for him.

I ask the hon. members to identify who made the following statements. The first statement from the minister that I would like to quote was made on September 24, 1990:

As we now stand in the present situation, we are looking at very long, protracted sanctions in the gulf which could take months—

He was talking about the gulf war.

—We are looking at a very major military build-up ... We are looking at a potential military option.

And most importantly, this last comment:

We would like to get some assurance specifically from the government—the Progressive Conservatives were in office at the time—that we will not engage in any offensive action in this region unless there is a consent of Parliament.

That is what the present minister stated.

The same minister, who was in opposition at the time, also wanted—I will quote him, if I may, and he can say so if he disagrees—to propose an amendment to have the House reconvene earlier than it was supposed to after the Christmas break. He said:

This is a way in which parliament will be allowed to present itself as the forum for decision making, not the Cabinet, the ministers or the Prime Minister but the people of Canada, through their elected representatives.

The present minister of Foreign Affairs introduced that motion on January 15 1991.

Further, speaking of Canadians, he said:

They know that there are no decisions more crucial for a government than those concerning war and peace. It is up to each state to make its own decisions. They want to make sure these decisions are made by all Canadians and that this forum, the Parliament of Canada, is respected.

The distinguished author of this quote is the current foreign affairs minister.

I will go on as the members opposite had some good ones. On January 15, 1991, they said, still concerning the Persian gulf war:

I maintain that the government does not, in the circumstances, have the moral authority to put this country into a war situation.

It is not the foreign affairs minister who said that, but the current Prime Minister of this country.

Still regarding members of this House, and chastizing the government for recalling the House too late, that is two days before the beginning of air strikes, and for asking the wrong questions, a Liberal member said:

However, just like the voters, I was entitled to being consulted on this fundamental question, which would have enabled all us to vote on the issue.

It was the current government House leader, a member with a lot of experience, who asked in 1991 for the right to vote on the issue.

My last quote concerns a Liberal amendment to the government motion.

This support shall not be interpreted as approval of the use of Canadian Forces for offensive action without further consultation with and approval by this House.

In particular, can we get assurances from the minister in the spirit with which we have been approaching this to have Parliament consulted before any final decisions are made as to these plans relating to our forces in the gulf area?

This was a question asked by the current Minister of External Affairs on October 23, 1990, which was before the start of the conflict.

Whether it is the Prime Minister, the Minister of External Affairs, the government House leader or other members who unanimously supported a report from the national defence and veterans affairs committee, they were all requesting, when they were in the opposition and even before the start of the conflict, that members be allowed to vote. How can we explain this about-face in the Liberals' position?

We heard a lot of nonsense. I will quote a few of those comments. One of the last Liberal speakers before the Minister of External Affairs was saying “We will vote against the Bloc's motion because, for example, if we want to send a cook to Kosovo to prepare food for the soldiers sent there as peacekeepers, we will have to submit the question to a vote in the House”.

They also said “We will vote against this motion because if CF-18 pilots are killed, we will need a vote to send a rescuer to retrieve their bodies”.

The Liberals said “We will vote against this motion from the Bloc because we have to act quickly to send ground troops to Kosovo to fight for us, without the proper training”. They might decide during the night that 1,000 soldiers will leave for Kosovo tomorrow morning at 5.15 a.m. Nobody will have been able to vote then.

The Liberal government has not given any good reason to oppose the motion. It has not given any good reason that would invalidate the position taken by the Minister of External Affairs when he was in the opposition. It has not given any good reason that would invalidate what the present Prime Minister said when he was the Leader of the Opposition.

We can ask why the government absolutely refuses to vote for this motion. We were also told that no vote was ever taken in the House concerning the deployment of ground troops. However, we know that a vote was taken in the case of the gulf war, another during the 1970s and yet another during the 1960s.

The minister mentioned earlier a few countries where no vote was taken. I answered that votes have been taken in Germany, and that two votes have been taken in the Czech Republic to determine whether the country ought to get involved in such a conflict.

A vote was taken this afternoon in the United States for the granting of several billion dollars to continue to defend the interests of Kosovars in this conflict. It is interesting to recall that a vote was held today in the United States concerning the budget.

Twice, last week and this week, we have asked the Minister of National Defence to say what the estimates are, what it would cost Canada, at this time, to take part in this conflict.

At the time when the U.S. Congress is voting on a budget that could amount to $4 billion or $6 billion, the two answers that my colleague for Joliette got from the Minister of National Defence were the same “We do not know”. We asked how many planes have been kept in reserve. At present, we have 18 planes over there. How many do we have left, if NATO calls for more? We were given the following answer “We do not know”.

We are entitled to wonder about the apparent improvization by the Liberal government with respect to this conflict. How much is it costing? We do not know. How many more planes can we send? We do not know. Are these state secrets? Is it a secret for national defence not to know, not to disclose, a budget like this one? That would be surprising, however, when at the same time the Clinton administration is voting on a budget for this same conflict, while the Minister of National Defence and the Prime Minister are telling us “It is a national secret, whether this will cost Canadians $40 million, $50 million, $100 million or $200 million”. We ask these questions but we cannot get any answers.

The opposition parties are unanimous, a rarity in the House, on the Bloc Quebecois motion concerning a vote in the House. This is one of the constructive and positive things the Bloc Quebecois has undertaken. We asked—

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An hon. member

One of many.

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Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Yes, one of many. There are others, including asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs to take advantage of Canada's position as chair of the security council to co-sponsor the peace plan presented by Germany. The response we got was: “We do not know. We will look into it. We are waiting”. Just like the answers on the aircraft and the budget.

In a speech, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois proposed that a conference of the European Union be held in order to define the future of small nations, those in the Balkans in particular. The Liberal side turned a deaf ear.

My colleague from Joliette ironically referred just now to the fact that, if we want to send a parliamentary mission of 5, 6 or 7 MPs outside the country, to Geneva for instance, in order to discuss the future of the WTO, we need unanimous consent in order to free up a budget of $25,000, $30,000 or $40,000. That is a rule currently in force in the House.

Yet if they want to send 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers to fight in Kosovo, there will be no vote in the House because parliament wants this to be decided by the PMO and the cabinet, while 9 years ago we were told that was not the right way to make a decision.

We have perhaps half or three-quarters of an hour left, and I beg my Liberal colleagues to open their minds, to think things through properly, to look at precedent and to support this motion by the Bloc Quebecois.

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6:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ted McWhinney Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, the hon. member for Repentigny has quoted the constitutional example of the United States.

We should not forget that, ever since the declaration of war on Japan, in 1941, the U.S. Congress has never used the rule set out in the U.S. constitution. Committing U.S. troops is always left to the president, to the executive branch.

In a way, Canadians have borrowed the British system inherited from the past.

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Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Vancouver Quadra, a leading constitutional and international relations expert, is probably at least partly right.

However, I can say that his colleague, the foreign affairs minister, when he was sitting on the opposition benches, did ask for a vote on the sending of troops.

Moreover, a vote has been held on this in the House. I was not referring to the United States.

Furthermore, as late as last year or two years ago, Bob McNamara, a former adviser to John F. Kennedy, apologized for the tragic mistake of the Vietnam war.

Do we want the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Prime Minister to be in a position, after the conflict, of having to apologize to the Canadian people? We are asking that members of parliament be allowed to exercise their responsibilities and to vote in the House.

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Bloc

René Laurin Bloc Joliette, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member.

Does he agree that, in our democracy, what the government is suggesting here is that we democrats not use the most powerful tool we have to express our democratic views, namely our right to vote?

The government is saying “You can talk all you want, we will allow that, we will organize debates. We will allow you to talk, but when the time comes to really say what you want to say, you will not be allowed to do it”. A parliamentarian expresses his or her point of view by using his or her vote. What the government is proposing is the opportunity to speak.

Does the hon. member agree that the government is violating our most sacred right, the right to vote?

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Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Joliette for his question.

In 1993, the Liberals' red book talked about restoring public confidence in the institution of parliament. One of the ways to achieve that is precisely to respect this historic right, the right to vote. It is difficult to understand why the Liberals want to violate such an important right as the right to vote.

In every riding, there are voters who are fed up with politics. They often tell us “Canada is a dictatorship elected every four years. We vote for a prime minister and a parliament, but after that we have no decisions to make. Everything is decided by the prime minister and his cabinet”.

Unfortunately and ironically, with the example it is giving to Canadians, this government is proving these voters right.

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Bloc

Daniel Turp Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC

Mr. Speaker, the consent of parliament was requested by the former foreign affairs critic, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, as my colleague mentioned earlier.

However, any consent must first and foremost be an informed one. One must be well informed before one can give consent and, on matters of such importance as the deployment of troops abroad, in countries such as Kosovo or Yugoslavia, the consent must not be implicit. It must be quite explicit, and it will be only if we vote.

I would like to ask my colleague if he considers, in this case, that the consent to which the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence and even the Prime Minister refer is an informed consent, given that the meeting scheduled for tomorrow, where we were to be briefed on the situation in Kosovo, has been cancelled?

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6:10 p.m.

Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, indeed, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has told us that 130 members have spoken on the issue of Kosovo. I do not believe that constitutes explicit consent on the part of members of parliament. The consent must take the form of a well informed vote, taken after meetings with the main stakeholders, that is the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Too often, they announce at the last minute that a briefing has been postponed or cancelled and, as my colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry said earlier, now these briefings will last only 30 minutes. With all the small talk, we will not even have time to ask questions.

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Bloc

Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont, QC

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—

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6:15 p.m.

Bloc

Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Verchères, QC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I appeal to the diligence and indulgence of my colleagues so that the hon. member for Rosemont may finish his remarks and be followed by the usual period for questions and comments.

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The Deputy Speaker

Is there unanimous consent to permit extension of the debate?

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Some hon. members

Agreed.

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Some hon. members

No.

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The Deputy Speaker

It being 6.15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt proceedings and put forthwith any question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

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Liberal

Bob Kilger Liberal Stormont—Dundas, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I understand that before I found my way back to the House there was a request to extend the sitting by approximately five minutes to allow the last spokesperson to complete his or her remarks. I know that unanimous consent was sought.

I wonder if there might be a willingness on behalf of the Chair to ask one more time for that unanimous consent with the condition of course that there be no question or comment period following that five minute conclusion of the debate?

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6:15 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Is there unanimous consent to continue the debate for five minutes to permit the hon. member for Rosemont to complete his remarks?