Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the hon. member for Wild Rose who said that government members are avoiding the question like the plague.
Mr. Speaker, you and I will remember back in 1990 when the Liberals did not avoid the question. They were very adamant. In fact the foreign affairs minister's predecessor, Lloyd Axworthy, a prominent Liberal, stated at that time:
...to deny the opportunity for this Parliament to be heard or to represent the Canadian people, to have the question posed, is a dereliction of duty by the government.
That is what the Liberals were saying then when they did not avoid the argument that they are avoiding today.
This whole issue is about contradictions. It is about the right of Parliament to be respected and heard. In 1990 before the first Iraq war Parliament was heard. There was a vote and we did have an opportunity to stand up. No issue is more important than the one we are talking about. I go back to Lloyd Axworthy again, who asked on October 23, 1990:
...can we get assurances from the minister...to have Parliament consulted before any final decisions are made as to these plans relating to our forces in the gulf area?
That question could be asked again today and probably is being asked by Lloyd Axworthy because he is one Liberal who has not changed the rules or has diametrically gone in the opposite direction.
This is a very important issue that we are talking about. It is about our ability to represent our constituents, as the Liberals once very adequately and eloquently defended but have given up on that principle. They have changed the rules altogether.
After the Conservatives agreed to have a vote, the then leader of the opposition, and now the Prime Minister, still complained that it had not occurred earlier. He said:
...we are being called upon to vote on a resolution... We on this side of the House believe that this resolution should have been brought to a vote before January 15, as was done in the U.S. Congress.
He was not happy with the time of the vote, but at least he got one. The same Prime Minister is now saying no vote for this Parliament. A vote then, but no vote now.
We can go on to the current House leader who now says no vote. On January 17, 1991, he stated:
...I think I had a right and my constituents had a right to have that fundamental question posed and to have all of us speak on the question that should have been before Parliament.
What happened to that man? Now he is saying no vote. We have the current Liberal House leader saying no vote. The Prime Minister says no vote. The former Liberal foreign affairs minister says no vote. It is pretty much unanimous now that there will be no vote, but at that time they did demand a vote. Now none of them will support Parliament having a vote.
This morning in the foreign affairs committee the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a man for whom I have great respect, came in and said there is a very important role for Parliament in this debate about Iraq. What is the role if we cannot vote? Then he said he did not think the committee should hear witnesses from the United States or Iraq on this issue, which was a motion I was going to present later on in the committee meeting.
I ask again, if Parliament is supposed to have an important role and we cannot vote, we cannot hear witnesses, and we cannot participate, what is the important role for Canada? I was very disappointed in the way that happened.
We do have an important role. We are being muzzled and denied the right to speak. We are being denied the right to vote. We are being denied the right to hear witnesses in committees. These are important issues.
If the government changes its mind and allows us to vote on this issue, I may be asked to vote on whether we send Canadians to another country to attack another people. I want to know as much as possible about that issue before I make that decision. I want to hear from the parties involved. I want to get every piece of information I can, but the government for some reason says no, we should not know this. We should not have this information. We should just go by what other people tell us and that we should trust the people in the government who are here to help us.
The fact of the matter is we have been denied the access to information. We have been denied opportunities to hear from witnesses who are very much involved. I know there was another motion that was contemplated in our committee this morning, which was to have a vote. That discussion was adjourned and the vote was gone.
The whole strategy here is to keep everyone quiet, not to listen to anyone, and not to let anyone vote or do anything. Then the government turns around and says Parliament has a very important role to play. If we cannot vote and cannot hear witnesses, what is that role?