Mr. Speaker, I rise in the debate, but I point out right off that I am no expert in the matter. I wish to express here the opinion of our critic, the hon. member for Mercier, who is out of the country, as well as that of my party, which is that there can be no military solution to the war in Sudan, except through the annihilation of the people of the south.
The member said “Let us stop funding this war and put our weight behind the peace plan of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. First, the Special Economic Measures Act must be amended to give the government the power to act and the credibility it needs to advance the peace process”.
I listened carefully to the member who proposed the motion before us, and he touched on a number of important points. I congratulate him on introducing the motion in the House, because the situation in the Sudan is really untenable. I thank him as well for putting this issue before all members.
Perhaps when he introduced the motion, he did not suspect it would be so relevant. I clearly understood the presentation of the specific context, on the subject of terrorism. This motion is really relevant, and I congratulate him on it.
However, I regret he did not get the unanimous support of the House to have the motion be a votable item. It is all very well to debate in the House, but if the motions are not votable, how can we identify the opinion of the various parties here? Personally I gave the Bloc's approval for it to be votable.
I have, however, some reservation with respect to the word “genocide”. We must rely on the reports coming out of the UN commission on human rights. I also noted that the American congress voted 415 to 1 to condemn the Sudanese regime's continual human rights violations, its support for terrorism and its participation in a genocide.
In the reports by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, the word genocide was never used. I am maintaining a degree of reservation on it therefore, although it is fairly obvious that what is happening at this time is that one group has assumed a dominant position. The group in the south is placed in a virtually untenable situation. I believe that it might be advisable to again look into the use of the word genocide, but I have reservations about using it because the reports we have date back a few months.
The hon. member has merit in presenting a motion that criticizes, perhaps we should not go so far as to use the word condemn, Canada's lack of any real position.
It is easy to take refuge behind a multilateral commission, as the hon. member has just done, but if no actions are forthcoming as a result, this comes down finally to tolerating a situation in which human beings, civilian populations, are being killed and attacked in all manner of ways.
In my opinion, this is position that is hard to sustain. I would prefer to address the position of the Government of Canada. Not to go too far back in time, I have read in the reports that the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Axworthy, whom we can now name because he is no longer in parliament, said the following on October 26, 1999:
If it becomes evident that its activities are exacerbating the conflict in Sudan, or resulting in violations of human rights or humanitarian law, the Government of Canada might consider applying economic and trade restrictions under the Export and Import Permits Act, and the Special Economic Measures Act, or other sanctions.
I neglected to clarify that this was in connection with the role of Talisman, the oil consortium, which is now effectively financing the war and the present Sudanese government.
Until then, both sides were more or less equal. The war went on, and they had no funding. But with the economic upturn, 25% of the government's income now comes from oil revenues. This, then, is the money that is being used to continue the war between the government and the other community in the south. There is, therefore, a very direct link.
Three weeks after Mr. Axworthy's statement, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report. Minister Axworthy responded that he was deeply troubled by the report.
He decided to send two people to Sudan, Senator Wilson, I think she can be named, and John Harker, to study the impact of oil related activities on human rights violations and on the intensification of the war. The Harker report was presented in February 2000 and its conclusions were in line with the previous reports.
Questioned again, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Mr. Axworthy, responded that he would take no action against Talisman or Sudan. He explained that there was no legislation that would allow the Government of Canada to act. The Export and Import Permits Act was not applicable in the case of Sudan, and the Special Economic Measures Act could only be used in a multilateral context.
This was back in February, 2000, over a year and a half ago. We cannot help but notice that the Government of Canada has taken very little real action, other than simply saying that this requires multilateral action.
I do not want to needlessly prolong my comments. I know that I have one minute left, and so I would like to conclude.
Once again, I would like to thank the member for moving this motion. I would have liked to have had a vote on this so that we could take action on this motion, and so that it could be studied by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and presentations could be heard, especially given the new context since September 11. We are now in the context of a war on terrorism and I think that there have been links made to the groups that are currently being targeted.
I too would like to ask for unanimous consent to have this motion made votable.