Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 52, I wrote you a letter requesting an emergency debate on the British and American bombing of Iraq. Why? Because this question concerns Quebecers and Canadians. It also concerns parliamentarians.
The exclusion zones proclaimed by the United Nations were not even respected during the February 16 air strikes. Four of the five targets were not in the exclusion zones.
This raises some extremely important fundamental questions about rights. Canada, along with Poland, are the only countries that confirmed the right of the Americans and the British to do what they did, according to the dispatches I have read so far.
As well, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously signed a report calling for the lifting of the economic embargo affecting the population of Iraq. Since the 1990 air strikes, poverty has increased dramatically, affecting children in particular. We can see that the sanctions are not affecting Saddam Hussein, but they are seriously affecting the general population.
Last year, a delegation of Quebecers and Canadians visited the region and returned greatly troubled. They called upon parliament and the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs to bring pressures to bear.
This movement to put an end to the economic embargo that is affecting the population has made some progress, but the air strikes of February 16 are a backward step and likely to make any diplomatic solution to this conflict that has been going on for 11 years extremely problematic.
As well, and this third reason strikes me as a very important one, the situation in the Middle East is already tense. Considering the deterioration in the relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the events in Iraq on February 16 cannot help but inflame the Arab peoples of the entire region still further. What is likely to happen is that the region will become a powder keg.
For all of these reasons, because peace, or the lack of it, affect all Quebecers and all Canadians, and because there has been such a major change in the Middle East situation, I call for an emergency debate.