Mr. Speaker, I think this is a very important debate, principally because the Americans are listening. Canada and the United States have been the best of friends since the second world war, the most intimate of friends, sharing their deepest secrets on intelligence and weapons development and atomic energy. The Americans trust the Canadians and when one has a trusted friend, the best thing that trusted friend can do is tell it as that trusted friend sees it. The reality is that Canada really does see a problem with the prospect of unilateral action by the Americans in Iraq.
I accept the findings of Colin Powell. I accept that Mr. Bush wants to settle the problem of Iraq for honourable reasons. It is true, as the member for Wild Rose just said, that Saddam Hussein is an awful dictator and there are many, many reasons why we should hope that there should be a regime change. I am not so sure that the threat posed by Iraq is a threat as serious as North Korea, which I think is a very, very dangerous threat, but nevertheless we have to accept that the Americans have the very best intentions in this proposal to attack Iraq and the proposal to attack Iraq regardless of the decision of the UN Security Council.
Now, here is the problem and I hope the people in the American embassy are watching and listening. If the UN Security Council rejects a unilateral attack or an attack on Iraq because there is not sufficient evidence and if this government, as it has the power to do, decides it will join a unilateral attack on Iraq, I will be one of the first on this side of the House to try to vote no confidence in my government.
The way our system works right now is the government, the executive, has the right to declare war and I agree with that principle, but it also must face Parliament. The reason why I would have to press no confidence in my government if it supported a unilateral attack on Iraq is because 66% of Canadians are opposed to such action and the total number of Canadians who are opposed to an attack on Iraq is about 80%.
You cannot have democracy two ways, Mr. Speaker. Either we represent the interests of our constituents and the will of our constituents, or we do not. When the feeling of constituents is so overwhelming against a war in Iraq, then a parliamentarian must listen.
Mr. Speaker, I would observe that this overwhelming opposition to a unilateral attack on Iraq does not stop at Canada. According to the Christian Science Monitor , 90% of Europeans are opposed to a unilateral attack on Iraq. If we go down the figures, Mr. Speaker, we find in Germany 80% are against a U.S. led unilateral attack on Iraq; 75% of the French; 90% of Turks, even though they have had to come to an arrangement with respect to air bases, but that is self defence. But the reality is the people in these countries are overwhelmingly opposed; and 66% of people in the U.K.
What I would implore the U.S. president to consider is: it is not a question of what the world leaders are saying; it is a question of what the ordinary people in the world are saying. They have seen a presentation by Colin Powell. They are not convinced that it justifies an attack on Iraq unilaterally without UN support. If they feel that, Mr. Speaker, and the United States goes ahead, what will be lost is enormous credibility on the part of the Americans and goodwill in the world.
The difficulty is when you are a superpower, you labour under the disability of always being perceived as a bully. And when you are a superpower it becomes more and more incumbent upon you to work with others in order to achieve legitimate aims. We can say that a regime change in Iraq is a legitimate aim, but it is not legitimate in world opinion if it is done unilaterally by the world's superpower.
What I fear so much, Mr. Speaker, is the aftermath of Iraq might settle the problem of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but I am afraid it will unleash a kind of cultural hatred that will spread around the world and the hatred will be against American culture. That is the fear. That is the danger that the Americans are running.
The cost of that in American assets alone is dreadful to contemplate, not only in the loss of investments abroad, not only in the fact that Americans will not be able to travel freely abroad because they will be afraid of attack not just from Muslims and the various dictatorships of the world, but also those people in other lands who already have suspicions about American culture, who are already afraid of an American culture that spreads across the planet.
Most of all, what will be lost? What will be lost is the ability of the Americans to say to the world, “We stand for freedom. We stand for the rights of everyone. We stand for working together for world peace”. That is what they will lose and it will be the biggest loss of all.
If the terrorists ever had a hope of destabilizing the world and hurting the United States, that hope will be fulfilled if the Americans invade Iraq without the support of the UN Security Council.