Mr. Speaker, it is important that all motions and private member's bills be votable. If they were we would have fewer of them and would spend more time on them. It is not because I support or do not support Motion No. 482 that I ask for it to be votable. It is because all motions should be votable. Members could then stand and vote and be accounted for.
I am not a historical revisionist. I do not know if we can correct the mistakes of the past. However we can prevent ourselves from committing the same acts in the future. That is what the discussion and debate should be about.
The sensitivity of the issue cannot be emphasized enough. The suffering of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks is an historical fact. It goes without discussion and without having to lay the burden of proof. The issue is this: Is it important to recognize it today and continue to let the wounds of the past bleed in the future? It is time we allowed the wounds to heal and let people move on with their lives. This should be done with regard to many issues and not only this one.
We learned a number of lessons from World War I and World War II. Our enemies in World War II are now some of our best trading partners. We sit on international joint commissions with people we met 50 years ago on the battlefield. Surely the rest of the world can find a way to do the same thing.
If we brought up every grievance, every massacre and every crime committed against another race of people we would never get to the end of the list. Man is not a perfect creature. Crimes have been committed against humanity time and time again. However is it is the role of parliament to deal with the issue? I am not denying the importance of the issue to many people. However there are other issues we should be dealing with.
We had this discussion earlier regarding national drinking water standards. We could go on and on about the issues not being addressed by the government. I am not saying this is a frivolous or deleterious motion. I am questioning whether it is the role or job of parliament to make a decision about a crime committed 85 years ago.
After 85 years surely there should be a way for people of Armenian or Turkish heritage to put aside the wrongs of the past and worry about how we will live together in the future. I do not know what that way will be. However I do not know how addressing this motion in the Parliament of Canada will contribute to the healing. We may simply be inflaming the issue and contributing to something else altogether.
It is not always important to lay blame. Sometimes it cannot be done. It is important to find a way for not only Armenians and Turks but all Canadians to live together. Let us take a lesson from what happened and not make the same mistake again.
Let us not spend all of our time in the House of Commons trying to right the wrongs of the past and, quite frankly, trying to right the wrongs that occurred on another continent. We have the second and third generations of some of those Armenian families living in Canada. We have the second and third generations of some of those Turkish families living in Canada. Our own ancestors fought wars in the British Isles and there are still people fighting wars between Britain and Ireland. Only now are they starting to be extinguished.
My own ancestors came from Scotland because they lost the war with the British. Surely that should not cause me to hate all the British. Surely we are beyond that. Who was right and who was wrong in the highland clearances does not change the fact that they occurred, nor should it change how I look upon someone in the future. Quite frankly, it is not the sins of our fathers that we need to be concerned with but how we live our lives and how we contribute to society.
For those reasons, I certainly did ask, and it was refused, to have the bill made votable because I think all bills should be votable. However, also for those reasons it would not be a motion that I would tend to support, not because I believe the motion is not important to a lot of individuals but because I do not think that is the role of the Parliament of Canada.