Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party to join with members from all sides of the House in supporting the principle of Bill C-14.
My colleagues and I have long called on the Government of Canada to take the steps that are necessary to ensure Canada's participation in the Kimberley process, which is an international certification scheme that aims to break the link between armed conflict and the trade in rough diamonds. We know all too well that civil wars in Angola, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are currently being fueled by the export of conflict diamonds. Rebel groups in Sierra Leone were also exporting diamonds to finance their military campaigns, although fortunately this conflict now appears to be over.
This morning I do want to pay particular tribute to the member for Nepean—Carleton for the work he has done, the tireless efforts that he has put into making this important legislation possible. I know that he has travelled to Sierra Leone on a number of occasions and has come back to Canada and made his colleagues and the public generally more aware of the concerns in this area. I think all of us owe a debt of gratitude to the member for Nepean—Carleton for the work he has done.
I will not be speaking at length as others have given some of the history of this process. We know that a number of dedicated NGOs have also been very much involved in making this important advance possible. Here I want to single out Partnership Africa Canada, which has really done an outstanding job. As Canadians, I think we should be very proud of the work it has done at the international level to help make this important Kimberley process viable. It has been working since 1996, along with another NGO called Global Witness, to conduct research on the issue and also to come up with an international mechanism to help address the problem. We heard earlier about UN resolution 1173, calling for the embargo of conflict diamonds from Angola. This has really been a partnership of NGOs, the diamond industry itself, political leaders and the United Nations working together to determine how we can actually track and stop the flow of these conflict diamonds and the resources that come from them from funding bloody struggles.
In May 2000, the Government of South Africa initiated the Kimberley process at an international meeting to discuss the establishment of an international system to monitor the trade in diamonds. Later that year in December, it was Canada that co-sponsored UN General Assembly resolution 55/56, which envisioned the creation of an international certification scheme for rough diamonds. This resolution was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly.
Here I want to point to the role that was played by our then ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Bob Fowler. Members of the House may recall that Bob Fowler made very strong and eloquent speeches on a number of occasions at the UN Security Council, drawing to the attention of members the importance of acting. We should as well recognize that we owe him a great debt of gratitude and that again as Canadians we have played an important role here. Just as our Ambassador Philippe Kirsch played such an important role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court, so too Ambassador Bob Fowler, I believe, deserves a great deal of credit in this area.
Earlier this year in March, the most recent Kimberley process meeting was held here in Canada, in Ottawa. Some 48 countries agreed to enact domestic legislation in order to create a global certification scheme for rough diamonds. That is the purpose of this legislation before the House today: to ensure that Canada plays its role as a member of the Kimberley process. We have heard already how that will work and we are hoping that the first Kimberley process certificates will be issued beginning on January 1 of next year.
Obviously this is an important step, but it is by no means the only step that has to be taken in order to deal with conflicts in areas such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. It is important that there be strong diplomatic action as well and that Canada play an important role there, that Canada work tirelessly to bring about peaceful solutions to these conflicts through diplomacy and, if necessary, through the contribution of peacekeeping forces under UN auspices. Yes, we must work hard on the issue of conflict diamonds, but we must also redouble our diplomatic efforts to deal with the underlying causes of these tragic and often incredibly bloody and violent conflicts.
We know that this will be good for the Canadian diamond industry.
We have heard the comments from the Bloc Quebecois member on this issue. He comes from a riding where there are diamond mines.
In fact, clearly the Canadian diamond industry would benefit from the Kimberley process because our Canadian stones would be certified as conflict free. We know as well that a number of consumers have avoided diamonds altogether because of the risk of supporting conflicts or terrorism. Hopefully now that this process is going to be in place they will call off these boycotts and this will again assist the development of the Canadian mining industry.
There is one important area in which I want to call upon the government to take every possible effort to strengthen the Kimberley process. The gravest weakness in the Kimberley process is the lack of independent, impartial, external, regular monitoring of governments' compliance with the regulations. This is a very important area and it is one which I hope Canada will be working hard on to strengthen in the coming months. Yes, we signed on to the Kimberley process, but it seems to me we also should be listening to those voices from the NGO community in particular, including Partnership Africa Canada, Global Witness, Amnesty International and Oxfam, which have all noted that this absence of independent monitoring may be a fatal flaw in the system. It is essential that we campaign actively to ensure that this problem is addressed.
In March of this year they made an effort at the Ottawa meeting on the Kimberley process, but unfortunately the participating committees were not able to agree to independent monitoring. Russia, for example, objected to external scrutiny of its diamond industry as it considers diamonds a strategic mineral. Other nations objected that such monitoring would be too costly, or they said it might jeopardize commercial interests, but it is essential that we move toward independent monitoring because without it there are simply too many loopholes in the entire certification system.
Conflict diamonds could enter the international marketplace under the guise of legitimacy and supported by the Kimberley process certificates. Now, for example, the Kimberley process only admits so-called review missions which will be established only when there are “credible indications of significant non-compliance”. These missions will only be conducted with the consent of the country concerned, which means they can simply be rejected by the suspect country. They would not be truly independent and impartial and the reviews would not be conducted on a regular and ongoing basis.
One example of this, according to Partnership Africa Canada, is the United Arab Emirates, which produces absolutely no diamonds whatsoever but increased its exports of diamonds to Belgium from $4.2 million in 1998 to $149 million in 2001. This is a country that does not produce any diamonds at all. Clearly if the United Arab Emirates does not join the Kimberley process, its diamonds will be excluded from the global trade.
It is important that we recognize that this is a significant step we are taking. Again I pay tribute to the member for Nepean--Carleton, to Partnership Africa Canada and to Ambassador Bob Fowler for the leading role they have played on this issue internationally, but at the same time I urge them to continue working to significantly strengthen the Kimberley process.
With that, once again, on behalf of my New Democrat colleagues, we join with members on all sides of the House in commending this important step forward. We will do whatever we can to work to strengthen it and make it a more effective scheme to ensure that conflict diamonds do not in any way fund the wars taking place at the present time.