Mr. Chairman, I know of no one among my friends and colleagues who was not deeply affected by the events of September 11.
Every one of us has etched on our memories those terrible images of skyscrapers collapsing in a cloud of smoke and dust, burying thousands of innocent people in an instant. So many families have suffered, and for them, life as they knew it will never be the same; innocent families have been completely shattered.
Economies around the world have also suffered because of the events of September 11. Tens of thousands of workers, in Canada and elsewhere, lost their jobs.
The repercussions from these attacks have surpassed our collective imagination. Nothing can replace all of those shattered lives. We can only hope that these lives were not lost in vain, and that we will have learned a valuable lesson from the tragic events of September 11.
Clearly, we must in no uncertain terms eradicate international terrorism, which respects neither human life, nor the law, nor the fundamental freedoms that are the very foundation of our collective life.
There is a very strong consensus here that we should go about eliminating international terrorism and the murderous violence and brutality that it represents. I think there is no dissension among us as to this.
During the several debates we have had on this question since September 11, many measures and initiatives have been discussed and debated at length. Our people have debated the state of our military preparedness, our security, details about what we should do about our security, about our military equipment and how we should or should not join the present initiative in Afghanistan. I will not spend the little time I have in discussing these events which have been debated at length by colleagues who have a far greater knowledge of these matters than I do. Rather I would like to project and look forward to the post-bin Laden era and look at the new world that we should be building after bin Laden and after the eradication of terrorism, which we hope will happen sooner than later.
I was quite young then but I recall the days after World War II. I recall the images of tremendous destruction in Europe and Germany being a rubble of concrete and steel after all the bombings. All parts of Europe were completely destroyed and millions of lives lost forever.
I recall that this prescient person, this visionary, General George Marshall, decided to convince the United States with the Marshall plan, which was then put into place. It was the foundation of the rebuilding of Europe, which now has flourished into a unity that we would never have guessed.
I suggest that in the new world after bin Laden we should really conceive of this new Marshall plan of the 21st century where we will put the accent on the have nots and on all those countries where poverty reigns and where all the causes of violence are.
General Dallaire in article on September 27 suggested that all the rich nations multiply their overseas aid by five times. He suggested that had we had this regime in place maybe the 800,000 people who were killed in Rwanda would still be alive today. He also suggested that those countries, where there is poverty and violence and where people live beyond a level of subsistence, could be better today, and justice and human rights would prevail.
I will conclude with these words by Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, which I read in an article. He said:
If we alter our basic freedom, our civil liberties, change the way we function as a democratic society, then we will have lost the war before it has begun.
I hope that we keep our civil liberties, that we think of a better and just world and that we start a new Marshall plan in the 21st century to eradicate the causes of violence in the world.