Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to rise at this late hour in the House but I believe this is an extraordinary and important debate and I am very happy to engage in it. I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Nepean--Carleton.
Most issues have been discussed and most things have been said in this debate. I think everyone in the House has been enormously touched by the tragedy that occurred in New York last week. Every one of us is united in desiring to convey to our American friends and Canadian victims and, as I learned tonight at dinner with colleagues of mine from around the world, Germans, French, Japanese, almost every nationality, including the nationality of the perpetrators of that terrible event, were represented in those buildings. That is why this issue touches us as deeply as it does.
It was not just an attack on the World Trade Center. It clearly was an attack that envisaged the World Trade Center because these terrorists wished to strike terror at the heart of the United States of America which is, and I agree with others who have spoken in this debate, the bulwark of democracy and our greatest friend and ally. However they also wished to strike terror into the hearts of us all because they wished to strike at a symbol where we all work and where we all assemble, and they used the basic instruments that we all use every day when we travel. Every member of the House gets on an airplane. The terrorists were very intelligent, clever people who chose the instrument of what is the very essence of modern society to strike at the essence of modern society.
In many ways the victims of this attack could have been any one of us. Many of our colleagues and many of my friends were in that building. My friend from Wild Rose told us that he came from the United States. He or his children might have been there. My mother was American. I might have been there in other circumstances. Any one of us in the House tonight might have been there.
We were touched by this tragedy because we recognized the nature of the commonality of humanity that was at stake in this tremendous tragedy. That is why it is so important to get to the bottom of this, to get it right and to make sure that our approach is right in dealing with this issue.
I think not only of the victims of the tragedy, the United States, but also of our colleagues in congress and in the administration. Many of us in the House tonight have many good friends in congress. I think of the tremendous responsibility that they have when they face the agonizing decisions that they will have to make to ensure that the way in which they respond to this event is one that will strike not just at individual terrorists but at terrorism itself.
That, it seems to me, is the way in which we have to analyze the issue. It is a much more complex and difficult issue because of that. When we turn our thoughts to the future we have to think of that. I know we will disagree. I listened tonight and sometimes the debate got a little hot. I listened to my colleagues ask why we are not doing more about this or doing more about that. I will come back to that.
We should and need to have that debate but it seems to me that we must first start from the premise the Prime Minister left with us today in his important speech to the House. He said something that I thought was extraordinarily important for us all to bear in mind at this time. He said that we must be committed to do what works in the long run, not what makes us feel good in the short run. Or, as put by a United States air force general who was cited by the leader of the NDP in the House today, “We must act on this event or we will invite more attacks, but we must not react excessively in a way that would put us on the same footing as the perpetrators of the attack” for, as I might add, we will breed a thirst for more revenge and more such actions that will cause us all to descend into the hell that the terrorists who committed that act wish us to descend into.
We are engaged in a war against terrorism, not just a war against individual terrorists. This means we cannot just stamp out cells of individuals and certain groups. In spite of the discussions we have had tonight, I would put myself on the side of those who believe that we must understand and deal with the root causes of terrorism: poverty, hopelessness, the desperation of innocent lives destroyed by conflicts in Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East, all too numerous to name in the House, which have been left unresolved for much too long.
An analogy which comes to mind is that of the IRA. All of us in the House understand and know what has taken place in Ireland. We know that for a long time the British, who are familiar with terrorism, dealt with the IRA. We cannot say that the British authorities were foolish people. They were very sophisticated. Yet there were still bombs going off. Terror and terrible events still occurred. It was only once a political solution was arrived at in Ireland that the majority of the population was able to say, “We will no longer tolerate this sort of activity” and came to understand that they could isolate those people.
I beg our friends in the Alliance on the other side of the House to understand that when we on this side speak about the root causes, it is not some sort of airy-fairy innocent thing we must deal with. We believe strongly that we must hit them and hit them hard but for God's sake let us hit them intelligently. Let us understand that if we do it the wrong way, we will be creating more problems. Let us deal with it the way it was dealt with in Ireland where there will be a political solution to these conflicts which will ensure that the population will rally around the solutions. Otherwise we are doomed to failure.
That is what we are asking for and that is what we need to do. We have to ask ourselves what we can do. We can do things.
I congratulate my colleague from the Conservative Party, the member for Cumberland--Colchester who has come up with an initiative for a peace conference involving the Middle East which I hope will take place in Halifax. The member for St. Paul's who is here with me tonight will be participating in that. I hope to have an opportunity to participate in it as well. It may be risky. We are inviting politicians from Israel, from the Palestinian authority to come together to discuss issues. In this climate this will be difficult but maybe with the will of God and the goodwill of some of us in this House we will be able to make a small change in the attitudes of people and bring about some changes.
We owe it to those who died in New York and those who are dying in that region today to take the risk and to do something. We can do it in this House if we reach out. Our parliamentary work will require it. There are committees to look at these issues. I certainly intend to urge my colleagues in the foreign affairs committee to look at these issues. In our work with our U.S. colleagues, we can encourage multilateral approaches rather than just unilateral approaches on their behalf. We can work in multilateral organizations, NATO, the OSCE, the IPU, all of those organizations which members in this House participate in.
The other thing we can do is work in this great country of ours. When the Prime Minister spoke on Friday he mentioned the nature of our society. I personally attended at a mosque in my riding on Friday. Just like my colleague on the other side who spoke of the mosque that is located in his riding, a Canadian Muslim came to me and said, “I am an individual. My identity is Canadian. I am a Canadian now. I don't wish to be tarred with this brush”.
When we speak about these issues in our dialogue here, we must ensure that people understand that individuals commit crimes. It is not communities, not societies and not religions.
I was with a group of young immigrant people in my riding the other morning. They were very nervous about what this means for them. We must assure them that they are part of our society and that they do not have to worry, that they are part of a proud community that rallies together.
We have built a society unique in the world. It is one which is respected around the world for its openness and tolerance and respect for others. We must ensure that our own rich, important, open and tolerant society is not among the victims of this terrible tragedy. When discussing the legislative framework which I have heard discussed tonight in the House, I ask my colleagues to bear this in mind.