Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure also to add my voice of support to the motion before us brought forward by our colleagues from the New Democratic Party. It is a well worded and well thought out motion. Members of the Progressive Conservative Democratic Representative coalition are supportive of the motion.
I would like to frame my comments in three areas today. The first is the government's response to the events of September 11. The second is a response to this actual motion. The third is what our response should be as members of parliament to the events surrounding September 11 and the actions that need to be taken as a result of those events.
Let me start with the good news first. I commend the government for its response on the actual day of September 11 when airplanes were being diverted and also the Canadian people who responded so overwhelmingly with their good nature to help stranded travellers from around the world who unexpectedly ended up here in Canada.
The memorial service held on the first Friday after the tragic events was a positive event which showed that Canadians were concerned about this issue and that we had great support for our friends and neighbours in the United States, our closest friend and ally. We commend the Prime Minister for going to ground zero this past weekend, perhaps later than he should have, and we commend him for inviting the leaders of the opposition parties to go as well. That is the good news.
There are things that could have been and still can be improved in the government's response to the issues surrounding September 11. There seems to be a hesitancy to come to parliament with concrete plans and actions as to what the government is doing. We have been given glimpses into what the government will do in the future through media reports and speeches given at party fundraisers. We invite the government at this time to make these suggestions and come forward with these ideas in this place.
If ever there were a time in our history as a country and as a world where there is an opportunity for leadership and opportunity to operate in a non-partisan way, it is now. There is goodwill among the members of the opposition toward the government at this time to work together in a way we have never seen because of a set of tragic circumstances which none of us could have foreseen. There is a time right now for us to grasp together this goodwill and put it into play.
Members from every party are waiting to roll up their sleeves and get involved. Many who are on particular committees are involved already. Others are feeling a bit shut out of the process, as my colleague just mentioned. We want to be involved with the government. We have some ideas and suggestions that we think are good and we know the government has good ideas. Let us make this place more meaningful and relevant by bringing them to the floor of the House of Commons, by striking some special committees, by getting the members involved and by bringing together the ministers directly responsible so we can move forward in a co-ordinated way.
Canadians are waiting for that. They are urging us as leaders in the country to do this. There is goodwill from Canadians and members to do this. Let us get on with it. I would urge the government to demonstrate by its actions some bigger steps of leadership. We acknowledge it is a difficult task and it can be all-consuming, but at the same time we encourage it to move forward and trust not only its colleagues across the way but the people of the country by demonstrating leadership in areas in which it has been lacking in some degree to this point.
I was disappointed that the Prime Minister did not go to the United States quicker, or perhaps even attend the joint session of the speech given by President Bush a week ago.
I was disappointed with the minister for multiculturalism yesterday. She has been rather silent over the last couple of weeks since September 11. Then the first major public attention she received turned out to be rather negative. She was in attendance at a speech given with extremist language directed toward the United States and sat in silence.
That is not the kind of message we want to send out not only to Canadians but to our neighbours to the south. We want to combat extremist language and attitudes of intolerance and hatred toward people within communities across Canada and also toward our neighbours to the south. We cannot have one without the other. We must stand against intolerance and extremism in all circumstances. That definitely did not show leadership on the part of the minister for multiculturalism.
In fact, I said earlier in this place that I agreed with the comments made by the New Democratic Party member for Halifax who condemned those comments. I echo her comments that the minister's credibility is seriously damaged in the area of implementing any kind of plan or program to combat the intolerance in these communities that are receiving these kinds of attacks in light of the events of September 11.
The motion brought forward by the NDP states that there needs to be a detailed plan with budgets and timelines laid out before the House, and I agree with that. How could we then expect the current minister for multiculturalism to be the one to implement such a plan given her woeful record in this area in the last several months in this place? We need a credible display of leadership in this area.
I want to touch briefly on the motion. It is a detailed motion, but I particularly want to pay attention to the last section that talks about a plan. It states:
--the steps Canada will take to implement an action plan, including detailed budgets and timetables, to fight the rising tide of intolerance and racism, directed against Arab and Muslim Canadians, in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks.
That is a good part of the motion. I disagree with others in the House who have said that they cannot support the motion because of this wording. I believe this strengthens the motion and we should all support this part of it.
We should go even a little further and ask the government for a detailed budget and detailed plans on issues such as border security and funding to the RCMP, CSIS and our customs agents who are the frontline workers when it comes to border security, airport security and other measures. This is another area the government needs to improve on. It needs to have ideas and plans specifically related to these issues, as well as the ones outlined by the New Democratic motion.
I would like to move to what our response should be. Our response should be to support this motion, to ask for more details, to move ahead and to work together in a non-partisan way.
The leader of our coalition made a good suggestion yesterday when he said that the government and the Prime Minister could show some leadership by including the leaders of the other parties in the Privy Council as the situation gets more serious so that we could, in a concrete way, see the actions of this government to be inclusive of all parliament. Then we could march together united against terrorism, against extremism, and against those who would use the name of a particular religion to sully the reputation of many others. We must fight these things in our country and our world. We must move ahead in a unified way.