Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from York West.
As most members are aware, when the attack was made on Washington I was standing very near the Capitol building. It was certainly grim to be in the centre of an attack on the symbols of our democracy, our liberty and our freedom. It was not an attack on the U.S.A.; it was an attack on the entire free world because in those buildings were people from many religions, many cultures and over 40 countries.
In Canada the ramifications spread to the farthest riding in the Yukon, which is mine. In Whitehorse a Korean Airlines plane escorted by military jets landed and they were not sure if it was hijacked and there was a lot of commotion and fear. I would like to thank those people of the Yukon who helped ease that situation.
I would also like to thank the Gwich'in people who were in Washington with me, the farthest community from this House, fighting for their survival, ironically as we are now all fighting for our survival. I want to thank all of the people who supported us in Washington and New York. I want to thank the survivors of the people on the last plane who may have diverted it from crashing into the buildings we were in.
I also want to thank and commend the courageous firefighters and police of New York. I also take this opportunity to extend that thanks to firefighters and police in Canada and around the world because they put their lives forward daily for our safety.
When we came back on the bus from Washington I was never so happy to see the Peace Tower standing strong. We should never begrudge our contributions toward our symbols of freedom and liberty. They are so important. However, even if the Parliament Buildings had been levelled, the terrorists would not win because liberty and freedom live in the hearts of Canadians. They will never take that away.
Our motion today has three components.
The first one is sympathy and condolences. I do not think we need to say much more on that. Thousands of Canadians came to this building and signed the condolence book on the weekend, Canadians from the capitals, from Whitehorse, and various communities. I left my office here after midnight for the last three nights and every night there were people at the Eternal Flame in front of this building showing their respect for Americans.
It was an incredible scene at the American embassy, one which I will probably never see again. For the entire block the fence was covered with flowers, condolence messages and teddy bears. I estimated that there was over 15,000 bouquets. That is an incredible sign of support for our American friends.
I was so proud to be a Canadian and to be representing a country with so much compassion when I came out of the Parliament Buildings last Friday and saw on short notice 100,000 Canadians showing their compassion. For those of our American friends who want to know, it is the largest group I have ever seen on Parliament Hill.
The second part of our motion is related to catching the perpetrators. We have just witnessed 5,000 murders. It is inconceivable that we would ever use any less intensity to catch the perpetrators of those 5,000 murders than we use every day to catch the perpetrators of a single murder. Just as they use technology against us, we will use technology in catching them. That is one of the great strengths Canada can add. It is an advanced technological nation.
As one of my constituents wanted me to emphasize, and as has been stated before, our attack against the perpetrators is not an attack against any nation, any religion, any culture. It is only against a few dozen heinous criminals and terrorists.
Human beings, as rational as they are, can be over-affected by emotion. It can cloud their objectivity. Another strength that Canada can offer at this time is to help keep our friends in America on track as we chase the perpetrators so that there is as little threat as possible to innocent people or any other collateral damage.
When we crossed the border on the way back on the bus, it was very moving as people clapped to be back in the safety of Canada. However, the whole world is in fear because when people in the tallest buildings in the world in the most powerful nation in the world with the greatest military strength in the world can be made victims, then we can all be victims.
That is why the third and last part of the motion is the most important and most difficult: making the world safe for civilization.
As in any crime, catching the perpetrator is only the first half of the solution, because any crime is a symptom of conditions that will generate more terrorists and more acts of terrorism. We cannot overly criticize the intelligence systems in Canada and the United States. Obviously we have to make improvements in those systems. However, we live in a free nation and we refuse to give up those freedoms and civil liberties. In a free nation it is technically, physically and economically impossible to surround with military troops every vehicle, every building and every person. Our war has to be on the breeding grounds of terrorism so we remove the reasons that are so powerful that people would give up their lives to wreak this havoc and horror on other adults.
Do we enter this war on terrorism when it is said that Canada loves peace? That peace has been shattered by this act of carnage. What about the notes from the children at the American embassy that are fearful but want peace? That peace has been broken. I believe it is our responsibility to fight to get that peace back for those children and for their children.
What other option do we have? What if we do not engage the enemy? Do we just assume that the terrorists who have killed hundreds of Canadians on Canadian soil and on Canadian property over the last 30 years will just go away? I did not see a note after this event saying that they would not do this any more.
The knives, the weapons of terrorists for centuries gone by, have been replaced by the weapons of mass destruction by modern terrorists. It will not get any better. Those weapons will get more horrendous. As Winston Churchill said, “We do not have a week, we do not have a day, we do not have an hour to waste in engaging in a war on terrorism and the root causes of terrorism”.
This will be a difficult and courageous decision for Canadians, because courage has a cost. In retaliation it could be the cost of Canadian blood at home and abroad. It is an excruciating decision for Canadians, because they are making it not only for themselves but for their children. Five thousand people died this time. How many people will die next time if we do nothing?
If anyone in the House is weakening in their resolve to engage in the battle against terrorism, I just want to imagine them going home to their riding tonight, sitting down to a dinner and thinking of thousands of other people with dining tables in their communities that are missing a person.
America, we are with you, because this was the slaughter of innocent secretaries and office workers, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters whose only crime was to choose to live and work in a free country, a country that loves freedom, democracy and liberty as much as we do.