Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow my hon. colleague after her well chosen remarks on this particularly sensitive, important and, in some ways, dark debate that we have to have in the House today.
It is important for us to understand and review the history a bit. In these kinds of debates and in these critical times, we sometimes forget where we came from.
A month ago in the House, the government, as a partner with NATO, recognized that there were atrocities being committed or about to be committed in Kosovo. The government and the country, as a partner in NATO, felt that we had an obligation as the peace talks in France fell apart to do what we could to protect the ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia.
There was no question that there was mounting evidence that those people were in a dangerous situation. We know the history of the Balkans and we know that there is an unsettled political situation there. We also know that there is, as in many parts of the world tragically, ancient grudges and ancient hatreds.
To that end, with all party support, the government through NATO participated in a bombing campaign. No one, I submit, believed a month ago that we would still be bombing Serbia today. That is not to be critical of anyone. I do not think the parties in the House who supported the government in its resolution believed that 30 days from that date we would still be bombing those cities.
No one thought that NATO would move outside the selected bombing targets which we thought, and I think everyone concurred, would be military targets. No one thought that 31 days after the bombing began, instead of bombing military targets we would be bombing the president's home, rightly or wrongly. No one believed we would be bombing television stations. No one believed we would bomb every single bridge across the Danube River. No one thought that we would collectively wreak the kind of destruction that has happened in the last 31 days. No one in any of the NATO countries—so as not to be overly critical here—and I think no one in the House foresaw the immense tragedy that would result in the movement of the ethnic Albanians across the border in such mass numbers, or the slaughter that would take place in their communities.
The evidence of that is in the simple fact that the international community was unprepared to help the refugees. It is a testament to the United Nations Refugee Commissioner that we have since been able to contain some of the tragedy.
However, for the first week across this country and across the world people were asking “What are we going to do about the refugees crossing the border”. I think there is evidence that no participating member of NATO, including Canada and the members of the House, foresaw the kind of long term campaign that has been ongoing.
Time began to change things a little bit and positions began to change. I am proud to say that in this party when Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, laid down what he thought would be five conditions that might bring the parties back to the table, this party urged the government to respect the historic position of Canada as a peacemaker, as a peace invoker and as a diplomat in the world.
We urged the government to go further than that and to say “Look, perhaps we can even drop those demands. Perhaps we can even weaken those a little bit to bring Milosevic to the table. Perhaps if we say, stop the atrocities that are taking place on the ground and come to the negotiating table, then perhaps NATO could stop bombing”. We pressured the government in that direction, all the while maintaining our support because it is important for this sovereign nation to work with the support of the House. The Prime Minister alluded to that today.
However, I think we have to measure the changes in the international climate against a tone that I get uncomfortable with in the House. Sometimes when I hear us talking, I think of us as siblings in the family of man saying we have a problem with another of our siblings. Today, there is a paternalistic tone entering the debate where we say that we will ensure that things happen in Kosovo, that we will ensure that our rules, our demands and our five conditions are met. That is not the historic role of this country. The historic role has been to brokerage between peoples and nations who have those paternalistic attitudes.
We have to stop and examine the history regularly in the debates in the House to ensure that we are proceeding on a direct course to where we wanted to go in the first place, which was to ensure that the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo was met. Whether that meant assisting in the creation of an independent Kosovar state, whether it meant peacekeeping forces as a buffer, whatever it was, that was our goal. It was not to bring Milosevic to his knees. It was not to wreck the Serbian economy. It was to ensure that the Kosovars, the ethnic Albanians, could live in some peace in their homeland.
Rigorously and every day, we in this party have fulfilled our obligation under the Constitution of Canada. Under our parliamentary obligation and responsibility, we have suggested alternative measures to the government. We pursued vigorously in question period, in debate and in all-night debates in the House various other options that the government might pursue. Those included ensuring that the United Nations play a significant role in the peace negotiations in this international crisis.
It is not now and has never been the role of NATO to usurp the United Nations as a governing world body. We must be clear on that. Granted, NATO had to act in this situation because the UN was in some ways paralyzed and we could not afford to turn a blind eye and say that because of bureaucratic situations we simply could not act. Let us be clear when we talk about peacekeeping forces. Let us be clear as we move toward the negotiating table that it is the United Nations and not NATO that is the international force that all countries respect. This party pushed and encouraged the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister to bring that message to the NATO table.
I am pleased to say that over the weekend we have seen, I hope, some significant results because of that kind of pressure. Canada should be proud that it has been singled out in NATO as the country to try and talk to the Russians, who play a crucial role in this debate.
Canada is now pursuing two aspects. We are still fully participating with NATO, but we are aggressively pursuing a diplomatic effort.
We introduced this motion today because we are now caught in a strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Canada has a kind of potion that we drink. On the one hand, we are telling Russia that we are the country that can help bring peace, and on the other hand, we are laying down conditions that can impede that very progress by saying that we will support an embargo, which Russia has adamantly refused to recognize. We are saying that we want to bring peace to Serbia, but at the same time we are saying we will supply more planes if we have to, to continue bombing the very people we want to come to the negotiating table.
In the last minute that I have, I want to review the resolution that my party has proudly brought into the House of Commons, and that is that we call on the government to intensify and accelerate efforts to find a diplomatic solution. That is our history and that is who we are.
There are nations that are very good at making war. We are not one of them. There are nations that are very good at bringing about peace. We are one of those.
We urge the government to accelerate and find a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Kosovo through the involvement of Russia, which everyone recognizes has to be a key player in this, and the United Nations, the governing world body. As signatories to the convention on Human rights, we have a role to play. Surely we cannot ignore the very body that we look to, to enforce that.
We are asking the government to ensure the involvement of Russia and the United Nations to urge NATO not to impose a naval blockade or take any other actions that expand the conflict and stand in the way of a diplomatic resolution. That is our motion. That is our role as a nation.