Mr. Speaker, among the family of free and democratic nations, the ties that bind the hearts of Canadians to the hearts of the people of the United States are among the strongest in the world. It is therefore entirely fitting that members of the House should meet today in response to the calculated and vicious terrorist attack on the people of the United States last week.
We join with our Prime Minister and all members of the House in offering our prayers and heartfelt sympathies to the families of the victims and our pledge of support for whatever actions are required to bring the terrorists and those who aid them and shelter them to justice.
My youngest daughter works in the financial district of the city of New York. For almost an hour after the first terrorist attack, our family waited frantically for that phone call to say that she was safe. Mercifully for us that call came, but we can only imagine the pain and heartache of those families, those moms and dads, sons and daughters and grandparents for whom the calls never came.
I have sat here all day and I have heard a great outpouring of feelings and words of sympathy for our American friends. The challenge for us is to translate our feelings and our words into decisions and actions that will make a difference in the days ahead. Almost all of us are agreed that something needs to change as a result of the enormous sacrifice of innocent lives on September 11. In fact we dishonour the memory of the dead and the suffering of the innocent if some fundamental change for the better does not occur as a result of these events.
What should these changes be and how should we ourselves change? It is self-evident that we in free and democratic societies must change our approach to personal, national and international security. A starting point for us in Canada, as many members have pointed out, will be to overhaul our system for screening persons entering our country from abroad, particularly those from countries known to provide a safe harbour for terrorists. A starting point for those responsible for security and intelligence systems in the free world will be to renew efforts to focus those systems on the new security dangers of the present and the future, such as international terrorism, as distinct from the security threats of the past cold war era.
The challenge in all of this will be to increase our capacity to anticipate, detect, deter and destroy the activities of international terrorists without in the process crippling or destroying the very freedoms and civil liberties we seek to protect and advance in the face of terrorism. However as we witnessed at the memorial services held last Thursday, in particular those held in St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the National Cathedral in Washington, there is a spiritual dimension to personal, national and international security which I feel we Canadians should not ignore.
It is my personal conviction that our response to the tragic events of September 11 will be transitory and incomplete if it does not result in a fundamental change in our attitudes and actions with respect to good and evil itself.
I know that by venturing into this ground, one is on dangerous ground in this country. We in this country and in the House shy away from publicly embracing the spiritual realities of life. In our secular and pluralistic society we seem incapable of even discussing, let alone taking direction, from Canada's spiritual heritage or clear standards of right and wrong based upon it. We are too fearful of being misunderstood and thereby dividing rather than uniting all people.
However, surely in the stark contrast between the black ashes of the World Trade Center and the light that shines from the efforts of thousands of ordinary Americans to aid and comfort the wounded and the grief-stricken, we can see and agree upon certain moral distinctives to guide us in the day ahead: that there is such a thing as evil in human nature and in our world, conditions and actions that result in the crippling and destruction of human life; that there is also such a thing as good in this world, even good that can come out of evil, actions motivated by love that result in the protection and nourishment of human life; and, most importantly, that good can triumph over evil. For that to happen we need to seek deliverance from its presence in our own lives and situations, resist its practice by others and pursue the good for ourselves and all mankind.
We have promised our American friends that our prayers are with them. We use that phrase very glibly. What should be the content of those prayers for this promise to be more than idle words?
Historically our nations, particularly in times of war and disaster, and that includes this nation, have sought deliverance from evil and the strength to do good through faith in the justice and grace of God.
My prayer is that the tragedy of September 11, 2001 will lead us to do so again, that our spiritual leaders will speak the truth in love or not at all and that our political leaders will be given the wisdom to fashion our response to terrorism and its roots in the light of the moral imperatives which this tragedy itself illuminates.
May we be delivered from the evils of false religion and indiscriminate revenge, inspired to new heights and depths of compassion for all those who suffer, while relentlessly pursuing justice for those who practice terror. So help us God.