Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, the Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, has raised two important questions. He asked what the alternative is to fighting against terrorism in the aftermath of September 11.
Of course every member of the House agrees that those responsible for these crimes against humanity must be brought to justice. However it was the parents of a young man killed in one of the World Trade Centre towers who asked how on earth we would bring about justice by killing more innocent victims in Afghanistan. They asked how many more innocent people must die before we recognize that the U.S. led military strike is a disastrous failure.
Bombs are hitting hospitals. Bombs are hitting Red Cross warehouses. Bombs are hitting villages and killing many more innocent victims including children. How is this bringing the perpetrators of those terrible terrorist attacks to justice? It is not. It is creating more innocent victims.
Humanitarian agencies and the global community have called for at least a pause in the bombing to enable us to get desperately needed humanitarian supplies into Afghanistan. The United States has refused. It has said the bombing must go ahead.
We have seen this movie before. We have seen it in Iraq. The U.S. was to go after Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Ten years later Saddam Hussein is still very much in power in that repressive regime. What about the people of Iraq? What about the innocent children of Iraq who are the victims of the inhumane and genocidal sanctions? How many hundreds of thousands of people must die? How many more innocent civilians in Afghanistan must die in this misguided, destructive and illegal war?
The member asks what the alternatives are. The alternatives are to work within the framework of the United Nations to establish an international tribunal similar to the tribunals established for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Evidence must be placed before the independent tribunal for those responsible to be brought to justice. If it is necessary to have a focused enforcement action under the framework of the United Nations to bring them to justice, so be it.
Surely we must recognize that the approach taken so far is neither bringing the terrorists to justice nor sparing more innocent lives.
I will say a word regarding the second part of my hon. friend's question. He asks about Doha, Qatar and the WTO agenda. He suggests Canada is promoting a development agenda and that it is prepared to listen to the poorest countries. The leaders of those countries said in their declaration in Zanzibar earlier this year that they do not want a new round of the WTO. They said they want to deal with a number of outstanding critical problems under the existing provisions of the WTO.
First and foremost among these is the issue of access to pharmaceutical drugs under the TRIPS agreement. The leaders of these countries want to see significant changes to that. The Canadian government has refused to accept any changes at all.
We have a lot of work to do to transform the existing inequitable terms of trade into fair trade. Rather than proceeding with a new round on investment, procurement and other areas, let us listen to the poorest countries in the world. Let us take steps to redistribute wealth and power from the wealthy to the poorest as the Bloc Quebecois motion is proposing.