Mr. Speaker, I rise to indicate my own support for Motion No. 285 and I can say with certainty that all members of the NDP caucus support this particular motion. It contains language, the use of the word genocide, to describe what happened many years ago, language that we find acceptable, language which we would urge the government to adopt in its description of those same events.
We also note, as have others, that many national parliaments in Europe have recognized the Armenian genocide. The Bloc Quebecois member who just spoke I believe noted the fact that the Ontario and Quebec legislatures have done the same.
Frankly we do not understand the reluctance of the Canadian government to recognize the Armenian genocide. We think it would go a long way toward healing the hurt that the Armenian Canadian community feels.
I will speak a little later about how that hurt was aggravated not so long ago by the Minister of Foreign Affairs when he treated a question about the Armenian genocide in a very cavalier way.
Not only do I not understand the Canadian government's reluctance, but I do not understand the Turkish government's reluctance to accept that the Armenian genocide can be called a genocide without having the consequences that apparently the Turkish government would want the Canadian government to believe and without having the consequences for Turkey that the Turkish government would want people to believe.
This was something that was done a long time ago by the Ottoman empire. I do not believe that current regimes should be held responsible for what happened a long time ago, unless of course by their reluctance to call things what they were they seem to assume a certain amount of responsibility in an indirect kind of way.
I urge the Turkish government to drop its defensiveness and realize that calling a spade a spade, calling a genocide a genocide, is the beginning of a process of healing and reconciliation which we would all like to see between the Armenian community and the majority community in Turkey. This would be the beginning of a process which, in the end, would be of great benefit to their country. I urge that particular perspective to be taken seriously.
I also note that not so long ago the Canadian government, with respect to our involvement in Kosovo, was very quick to use the language of genocide when it was describing the ethnic cleansing that was going on in that community. It did not mind using the word genocide to describe what was going on and why it wanted to do something about it.
Why the reluctance to properly name something that went on a long time ago which was clearly of the nature and the magnitude that deserve the particular description?
It is sometimes said by the Turkish government that this was a civil war as if that excuses things. Recently there was a civil war in Rwanda. There was a struggle between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples. The fact that it was a civil war did not prevent the international community from saying that there was a genocide in Rwanda. The fact that something has the nature of a civil war does not mean that there are not things going on which also have the nature of a genocide.
There may be a civil war in which many people of the same ethnic or national community are killed and it does not qualify. It may qualify as a tragedy, a slaughter, a murder and everything else, but it does not qualify as a genocide. There may also be a civil war in which one group seeks to exterminate the other and it does qualify as a genocide. I submit the circumstances we are talking about warrant the use of the term genocide.
Finally I refer to what was a very regrettable day in the House of Commons. On April 25 my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs a question with respect to the issue trying, as we have many times in the NDP and as have other members of other parties, to get the Canadian government to use the word genocide to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs did not even answer the question.
He did not even address himself to the substance of the matter at all. Instead he referred to a story in the paper that day having to do with the participation of the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas in the protest against the free trade area of the Americas at the summit in Quebec City. He then made a joke about something that had happened at that time, something he should not have made a joke about anyway. The offence was even further compounded in the sense that it had nothing to do with the question that was asked.
That would be bad enough in terms of parliamentary decorum and procedure, and the fact that we would expect ministers to try to pretend that they are answering the question. We know they often do not answer questions, but at least they like to appear that they are addressing the same topic, not the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
When asked a serious question about the Armenian genocide, he referred to something completely different. By so doing, he did not just insult the House of Commons, he insulted the Armenian Canadian community. He in effect made fun of and mocked the concern that the member for Burnaby—Douglas expressed on their behalf.
To my knowledge the Minister of Foreign Affairs has not made amends for that offence against the House and the Armenian Canadian community. I wrote to him today calling on him to do so. I hope other members would do so as well. I certainly know that the Armenian National Committee of Canada wrote to him to express its dismay at the insult it felt on his behaviour that day.
This debate could be carried on in a serious way, with serious arguments on both sides, although I happen to think the argument for using the word genocide is a much more serious and convincing argument, than the rather weak arguments that we sometimes get from the government side.
Thanks to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we now have an element introduced into the debate which is entirely unfortunate. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has the responsibility to clear this up, to admit that he made a mistake and that his partisan political nature got the better of him on that day when he responded to the member for Burnaby—Douglas in a way that he should not have. That would go a long way to healing the offence that was committed that day.
The greater offence that we speak about here today is the offence against the Armenian people that was committed a long time ago. We say that offence was genocide and that is what the world should call it. We say that would be the beginning of reconciliation and that the Canadian government should use that word sooner rather than later.