Mr. Speaker, I will refer to the last comment about getting people to stop hating. I heard Henry Kissinger, I think it was, say that was probably not a possible scenario in these parts of the Balkans. Hate is deeply ingrained in the souls, hearts and minds of the people in that region. I wish it were so that by holding up Canadian values or values which we hold dear we could communicate in some way that they should stop hating. I wish it were that easy but I fear it is not.
I congratulate the member for Halifax and the New Democratic Party for putting forward what I frankly consider to be a responsible position in a responsible use of an opposition day. We have had scenes in this place where motions have been put forward that frankly would be seen as nothing more than grandstanding for the purpose of perhaps espousing certain philosophical viewpoints or somehow trying to embarrass the government. I do not think the motion does that at all.
The motion states that the government should intensify and accelerate efforts to find a diplomatic solution. Who among us would not want that to happen? Who among the population of this great country would not want that to happen?
The mission being undertaken by the minister later this week, with meetings being set up in Russia and meetings with the Secretary General of the United Nations, is an effort to do exactly that, to find a way to answer a question I have some difficulty answering when constituents call me: How did this happen?
We have to look at history to find out how and why this has happened and why we are debating it today. It is responsible of an opposition party to suggest that the government should increase efforts to find a diplomatic solution. I agree with them that it should happen. I also think it is responsible for us to urge NATO not to accelerate the campaign beyond what is currently going on in an effort to try to find a diplomatic solution.
Having said that, we cannot stick our heads in the sand. I was very interested to hear my colleague from Hamilton—Wentworth say that he had held a town hall meeting. I wondered what it would be like to have a town hall meeting in Kosovo. I wondered how people who have been driven out of their homes and who have watched their fathers, their husbands and their sons assassinated in front of them would feel about participating in a town hall meeting. This is not media hype; we have heard testimony from refugees who have stood by and watched their mothers and their daughters raped in front of their families.
I think they would be so shocked at the democratic process which my colleague held in his riding that they would not know what to say. They could not imagine describing the horror and the pain.
While we strive to find diplomatic and peaceful solutions, we have to take a look at why we are in this position in the first place.
In 1949 former Prime Minister Lester Pearson, whom I think all Canadians and members of this place would consider one of the great men of this century, won a Nobel prize. He signed an agreement with 11 other countries to form an alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That membership has expanded to 19.
What was the purpose? Was it just some kind of window dressing following the war, that we should all get together once a year and have a barbecue or something like that? I do not think so.
These were 12 and now 19 countries that recognized a number of different threats existed in the world. The most obvious would have been the spread of communism in 1949. We saw what happened with the wall. We saw it go up. We saw it come down. We saw a country divided. We saw what happened economically and philosophically, or from any aspect of society we want to look at, to a country that could have been, should have been, might have been and might still be again a great country, Russia.
This may be a bias but I happen to think it is one we all believe in, the bias of democracy. This is a people who have been put in a terrible position because of the spread of communism and because of the militaristic attitude that occurred in that country. They wound up in a destitute situation. NATO was formed to monitor the spread of communism.
Tito was in charge in Yugoslavia and the army was there. I witnessed firsthand in 1990 when I was part of a parliamentary delegation as a member of the provincial legislature the first free elections in Croatia since the end of the second world war. Yet there were still armed soldiers standing over the ballot boxes intimidating the people as they came in. They stood there and did not move.
I remember how incredulous some of the Croatian people were when I went up to the armed soldiers and put a Canadian pin on their lapel. They were quite astounded that I would do that. Thinking back I was a little nuts to do it. In any event I was being friendly and extending a friendly hand to those people. We could see tears in the eyes of the Croatian people as they lined down the street to vote for the first time since the war. It was truly one of the most amazing and moving political opportunities that I have experienced.
Like most of us in this place I am really rather spoiled. Think of where we live. Think of the fact that I have often said in this place that our weapons are hopefully our minds. Our ammunition are the words that we hurl at one another. We do not kill one another. Hopefully we do not. There may be days when some would feel that way but generally speaking we are not a violent people.
Yet we see what is happening and we a partaking in what can amount to nothing other than a military action, or call it whatever we want. It is war against a regime. I do not consider this a war against the Serbian people as a nation. Although I have to openly admit obviously Serbs will be injured and killed in this exercise. That is a terrible tragedy, but we cannot sit back and do nothing.
I wonder what the Canadian people would say if Canada, a participant in NATO for the last 50 years, was to step back and say that we will not be involved in this situation; we were there for the good times and liked the conferences, but we will not participate in this action. I do not see how we could in any moral conscience take a position that we would not participate.
I pray and hope, as do all Canadians and members of the House, that what we have seen today will not escalate into the use of our soldiers in active combat. It may yet happen, but we hope it will not. They are there. They are being positioned to go in to implement a peace settlement. I hope that our minister and our Prime Minister can meet with the Russians and do what the NDP is talking about and what we would all like to see, to see if Russia can implement a peace settlement with this regime to end the fighting and the killing.
Then our people could do what they have been trained to do, that is keep a sustaining peace in that part of the world and help the Kosovars readjust, go back in and rebuild their lives. I know we all pray for that, and hopefully we will see it in the not too distant future.