Mr. Speaker, we in our party agree with the direction of the ratification. I congratulate the minister for anything he and others in his department had to do with advancing the cause.
However we are concerned about whether we can live up to the full spirit and letter of the accord. I make reference specifically to the issue of terrorist financing and the steps needed to counter terrorist financing as the minister has indicated.
The minister himself has stated that the convention requires member states to take specific measures to stop financing and harbouring terrorists.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is still tolerating terrorist financing in Canada, since he is refusing to ban Hezbollah fundraising here, in Canada. Hezbollah is a terrorist group.
I do not want to belabour the point but the minister's remarks leave me no choice. He cited an international accord which we support. However he cited a line in the accord which talks about doing everything we can to stop the financing of terrorism.
Did the minister inform his counterparts in the United States and Israel, countries which have banned all fundraising to the terrorist group known as Hezbollah, that Canada allows supporters of Hezbollah to openly raise funds and send the money overseas to Hezbollah agents as long as the agents promise to be good old boys and not use the dollars to continue their blood splattered record of terrorism and murder in Israel and a number of other countries? The RCMP, CSIS and experts on international terrorism have all testified that our government is being totally naive, and I would suggest delinquent, in allowing fundraising for any group which takes pride in blowing up innocent civilians.
We congratulate the minister for his overall part in the accord and for making Canada a signatory. However as the ratification speaks specifically to the suppression of terrorist financing, we must achieve this by stopping fundraising for groups like Hezbollah in Canada.