Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to this bill with some trepidation because of the largely emotional aspect of it.
Many years ago there was a song that was sung on the radio. It went, “Ain't going to study war no more”. I will not sing it because that may affect negatively on the people on the other side of the House who may rise in derision at my attempt to sing. It was a spiritual song, “Ain't going to study war no more”.
Without exception, all thinking people, all people with any conscience at all, will agree that war is terribly bad. It is really wrong. It is as great an evil as we can think of. Even if it involves only the people who are enlisted, it still involves humans pointing weapons at their fellow humans with the intent to kill them, and success goes to the one who wipes out the other side.
It is a great aberration to our society. It is one that would drive humanists to despair. For many years the humanists have said that we as a humanity are getting better and better but it is quite clear that is not happening. If I were a humanist in the sense of that being a religious faith, my faith would be severely shaken because of the atrocities that have continued through the ages and which continue to this very day. Quite clearly war crimes, atrocities committed in war and indeed even atrocities that are committed outside of war are abhorrent to us.
I think of another phrase. There are some things that are so evil, so offensive, that it is even difficult for us to speak about them. The atrocities of war certainly come into that category. I find it difficult to even think about them let alone speak about them.
I happen to be sandwiched between two generations that have firsthand experience with this. My grandparents and parents were in the middle of such atrocities. My parents were in their very early teens when they escaped from what we affectionately call the old country. They did so under the threat of losing their lives if they stayed. They were able to escape. I have said in the House many times and I will never stop saying it, how grateful I am that their escape was successful, that my grandparents made the decision to make Canada their home and that Canada, with its arms wide open for refugees, accepted our family. I will be forever grateful for that.
I said I was sandwiched between two generations which have had firsthand experience with this. The other side of it is the experiences of my son, who I suppose picked up some of our family values. He spent one summer while he was at university working in third world countries with a Christian relief agency. The stories he told of things that he observed firsthand are enough to make one cry. It is impossible to imagine the things that humans will do to one another. I want to relate just a few.
With a name like Epp, it is not to be unexpected that I have some Mennonite heritage, since that name appears quite frequently in Mennonite circles. My family members in southern Russia at the end of the first world war and during the time of the Russian revolution were considered to be enemies of the revolution because they would not take up arms in order to annihilate fellow human beings. They thought that was morally wrong so they would not do it. As a result my family and all other Mennonite families were considered by the revolutionaries to be enemies of the revolution. Hence they became targets.
Many times late at night, sometimes after midnight, their homes would be attacked by the revolutionaries. Because they knew that the people who inhabited those homes were not for the revolution, they were simply taken out and shot. Three of my maternal grandfather's brothers lost their lives. It was a miracle that my grandfather survived in that particular occurrence. There were many other cases.
I read not too long ago The Diary of Anna Baerg who underwent some of these atrocities and wrote about them in a diary not unlike The Diary of Anne Frank . I recommend that book to all members. As a matter of fact, the government House leader had a copy of that book and lent it to me since he knew of my interest in it. I read the book carefully and with great interest because it represented the things that my own family went through.
She relates some of the atrocities about the people who were summarily shot, people she knew and lived with, her neighbours. She indicated how one girl was not shot. She said in her book that there are some things worse than death, and Madam Speaker, you and I know what she is talking about. I cannot help but grieve when I think of the things people are willing to do to others.
My son worked in different places in Africa, in southern Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda. He worked in Croatia. In Croatia a home was set up for women who suffered terribly in the conflict. He told me stories that broke my heart about things that were done to children while their mothers watched. The stories are so detestable that I cannot and will not speak about them though the picture is very vivid in my mind.
I do not know what the answer is. We have before us a bill to bring to justice the people who do these things.
My son and his wife went to Rwanda. The government provided them with a school so they could provide housing for the hundreds of children whose parents were killed in the conflict. To kill parents in front of their children and to leave the children on their own is a huge atrocity.
My son and his wife had as their first job to clean the school. The school was filled with bullet holes. The enemies had entered the school when it was in operation and when the so-called soldiers left, every student and teacher in the school had been shot and subsequently died. My son's job was to clean up all the mess on the walls. That school was used to house the children and give them some shelter and love.
Madam Speaker, I see your signal and cannot believe that I have only covered my preamble.
Canada's involvement in reducing the crime of war throughout the country is what we should be emphasizing. Let us help to spread the message of love and forgiveness and learn to live with one another so these things do not happen. Yes, we must to the degree that we are able, help to restrain the evil which pervades our country and our very world and which leads to the hideous atrocities committed against women, children and men.