Debates of Feb. 6th, 2003

Supply

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing his time with me.

When I listened to different members express their points of view, I thought about of analogy I could use to help illustrate the issue here today. The real question is whether we will hold the Liberal government, under the Prime Minister, fully accountable its decision with respect to the involvement of Canadian troops in any possible attack on Iraq. We have to think about why we are here.

Here is the analogy I thought of and it happens to be a true story. It happened only a couple of years ago and for obvious reasons, I will not give the House any names.

A young lady was found to be very attractive to a certain young man. He started hanging around her house. This young lady happened to have three brothers, all of whom were substantial in size, football size quality, and had a way of imposing their presence. They were a little concerned about this young man who was trying to court their sister so they came up with a plan.

These young fellows happened to have a very nice little sports car. The next time this young courting visitor came around, they took him for a ride in the car. The three brothers and the young man, who was trying to edge his way into the family, all took a drive in the car. Lo and behold it did not take long for them to end up out in the country.

These three young men did not intend to do any harm to this young man, but they wanted to give him a very strong message. They stopped the car and got out. They were looking under the hood at the motor and so on. They arranged it so that suddenly this young man, who was quite thin, found himself surrounded by the three rather burly sized guys. They simply looked at him and told him that they knew he was after their sister and if he hurt her in any way, he would regret it. They wanted to make the point very clear that they were there to protect their sister. This is a true story, but I am just not telling members who it is. However I there is a happy ending to this story.

This young man realized full well that he had some really strict rules to obey during the courtship time, and it worked out fine. Today they are a happily married couple and the boys like their new brother-in-law. There was a time when he was considered a threat and without doing anything bad the boys made sure he received a clear message.

We have a similar situation with Saddam Hussein. From all we can tell, he is a guy intent on doing some pretty serious evil in various parts of the world, particularly the free world. That is in his plans for the future. We know he has already done some pretty dastardly things in the past, and I will get to those.

The point right now is that we need to have a bunch of allies surround him, stand close to him, look him right in the eye and tell him that if he touches us there will be big consequences. The outcome hopefully will be that he will back off, agree with the United Nations inspectors and give them total freedom to work in his country, to take away his offensive arms and his ability to produce them, thereby ensuring safety for his people as well as for people around the world. That is the objective I wish we could achieve, and it has been mentioned here before.

I do not think members in the House would say that they ought to support George Bush and that they would go in and attack someone. Neither George Bush, nor the Americans, nor Canadians nor the British are schoolyard bullies. They are the big brothers saying not to touch their sister. That is what we are saying to Saddam Hussein. He has done enough to his people. He has threatened the rest of the world. We are saying that we will not let him get away with it and that we will take away his ability to do it.

I need to emphasize that this person is a real threat. Just think of a few things he has done. He unilaterally attacked Kuwait. At that stage everybody said that the Americans were only going there to defend it because of the oil source. Frankly, I do not believe that. I think the Americans and Canadians together have that capacity to match maybe 85% or 90% of the oil output that comes from that part of the world. We have it almost in Alberta, if we were to develop the tar sands in our part of the country. I do not believe that it is just about oil. I think it is about freedom of people not to be attacked by neighbours who are belligerent. I think that is why the Americans went in there to protect Kuwait and free it.

What did Saddam Hussein do when he was driven out of there? I suppose the images burned into all our minds are of the oil wells burning. They would still be burning if it were not for American know-how and the personnel and equipment which went in to shut the wells down. That is the kind of an irresponsible person with whom we are dealing.

We think of the Kurds that he gassed, as an experiment almost. That puts Hitler and Saddam Hussein into the same category. Hitler also did experiments on humans. We look back in history now and say that stopping Hitler when we did was almost too late, it should have been done earlier.

Of the evidence I have that tells me Saddam is a nasty man and not to be trusted, the one that gets me the closest is the way in which he dealt with his own family. First, we need to recognize that there were I think four sons-in-law, husbands of Saddam's daughters, who said that Saddam was bad and they would have to inform the rest of the world about him. They took a huge risk doing that. No matter where they were in the world, they knew they would be a target. They left the country and began to talk publicly about the danger he was to the rest of the world.

Saddam Hussein sent a message to them and asked them to come home because he missed them. He said that he missed his daughters and he loved and missed his grandchildren. He said that he had forgiven them. Those were the words and commitments he made to his daughters. What happened when they returned home? He killed them. Some reports said that he personally shot his sons-in-law, the fathers of his grandchildren. To have any meaningful conversation and say that what we ought to do is to negotiate with this guy to me defies understanding. He is a guy who has to be surrounded.

What is the motion about today? Part of my job is to help members on both sides of the House vote in favour of the motion. Every one of us here can vote in favour of the motion, regardless on what side we are. We acknowledge that it would be an executive decision to declare war and to commit our troops to that war.

We acknowledge that the government will make that decision, with or without a vote. We wish that there would be a debate and vote beforehand. Given that there will not be, we are saying that the government should be held accountable. The day after, or as soon as possible if the House is not sitting, we want the members of Parliament to have the freedom to stand up and vote on a motion which would say that the House concurred in the decision by the government regarding Canada's involvement in military action to disarm Saddam Hussein.

Regardless of which side the members are on, they have the opportunity, with this motion, to vote on it. Our motion today is simply a way of assuring that such a vote will take place the day after, or as soon thereafter as possible if the House is not sitting, according to the amendment. In that way we would be able to tell the government whether it has the support and the concurrence of the House in the decision it has made.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I find it discouraging, and I think a lot of Canadians do as well, that we would feel the need to spend a lot of time in the House stating and restating that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous despot and a despicable dictator. I do not think there are any differences of opinions in the House on that point. It is very important to be clear about that.

What is deeply disturbing and what is very important for us to remember is the position that has been expressed by too many members of the House, particularly the official opposition, that would suggest that any informed critiquing of the Bush administration's current policies and proposed actions is somehow inherently anti-American.

Let me ask the member if he is aware that a couple of weeks ago, in the context of the NDP leadership convention in Toronto, a very courageous man and woman appeared who were part of the formation of an organization in the U.S. called Military Families Speak Out. This couple has a 23 year old son in the U.S. marines who is in the Persian Gulf and is being prepared to enter a war in Iraq. They were here to plead with Canadians not to misrepresent the situation in the U.S., the notion that somehow to critique the madness of the current Bush administration's policies is to be anti-American.

Can the member not recognize and can he not persuade his colleagues to recognize that there are many facts that are being ignored by George Bush and Colin Powell? In fact, in his speech yesterday he utterly and totally ignored the testimony of Hans Blix who has actively and openly disagreed with the assertions that were being made yesterday by Colin Powell.

Can the member not recognize the difference between some kind of knee-jerk anti-Americanism and some kind of informed critique of the particular facts and the particular policies that cause concern for a great many people in the world today?

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the hon. member greatly weakens her argument when she begins with the ad hominem attack on the President of the United States by calling him a madman. I do not know how she can do that.

She is appealing to me and other members here to have a rational debate based upon investigation of the facts, which I am prepared to do and which I think most members here are prepared to do, but she seems to have already made up her mind that any evidence to the contrary is simply as that seen through the eyes of a madman. She has jumped to the conclusion prematurely.

We should look at all the evidence. It seems to me that the evidence is rather overwhelming. I mentioned some of it with respect to the personality of Saddam Hussein himself, but as far the evidence of the presence of the weapons and the ability to create them, there is a lot of evidence there.

The member must take into account and remember that a lot of evidence has been presented, but we can count on the fact that the Americans have much more evidence that they cannot disclose because it could weaken the protection of their own troops or their own people if in fact war does become inevitable, which it appears as if it will be because this man will not just say that he is giving up. He will keep on with his plan and he will need to be stopped for the security of all nations in the world.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is a known fact that Hans Blix has made it clear that the UNMOVIC inspectors have seen no evidence of mobile biological weapons labs, no persuasive indications of Iraq--al-Qaeda links, no evidence of Iraq hiding and moving material used for weapons of mass destruction and on and on.

I ask the hon. member this again. Can he not recognize that it is not somehow anti-American to critique the madness of current policies?

He will see that the record does not show that I have called the President of the United States a madman. However I have no hesitation saying that the policies being pursued and the policies uncritically being embraced by this government are policies that simply fail to deal with the facts and are very much caught up in rhetoric that is posing a danger to the future of humanity

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as we saw yesterday in the evidence presented, the military of Iraq is taking all sorts of measures to make sure that the inspectors are not finding the evidence; the smoking gun so to speak, the actual evidence. It is moving it and making sure that it is hidden. The evidence given yesterday showed that was what it was doing. Of course Hans Blix and the inspectors have not found it because it is being moved around.

I think we ought to commend the Americans for saying that notwithstanding that, they will dig right down and ferret down to the truth. Is this why the evidence is not appearing? Is it because of the fact that they are moving it?

I believe the secretary of state, in his television address to the United Nations, gave adequate reasons for us to believe that there is material there that is being moved. I at least was convinced of it and I am very much against war. I wish it were not so but it is staring me in the face.

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough East.

On this very important topic, I think we should state where Canadians are. Canadians know that the world is a dangerous place. They are very proud of their contributions in the past to pursuing peace, to securing peace and to keeping the peace.

With rumours of war circulating at the present time, they are now trying to evaluate the news of each day against their own memories of history and measure it against their own life experiences and their own set of values. I think they remain skeptical about war in general as a solution to problems and I think they remain concerned about the unintended consequences of war, consequences which many of our own citizens in this country have experienced in the past in their home countries.

Those who have personal experience with war, report that war is primarily not about victory or defeat. War is about destruction. War is about death.

Right now the citizens of Iraq, 25 million of them, feel like they are under a death sentence. Each passing day seems to bring them closer to a war in which tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of them will die.

The U.S. military strategy for Iraq is called shock and awe, and involves dropping 300 to 400 cruise missiles each day for two consecutive days. That is more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire gulf war which lasted 40 days.

On January 27 the military strategist who designed this strategy called shock and awe told CBS News “We want them to quit, not to fight, so you have an effect rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but only minutes”.

He went on to say “the sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before. There will be not one safe place in Baghdad”.

If there is a war, this will be the military strategy. I ask my colleagues, does Canada want to be part of an attack on a city full of civilians in which there will truly be no safe place?

Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have predicted that 500,000 Iraqis could die in this war. The United Nations own task force predicts that 100,000 Iraqis could be wounded and 400,000 hit by disease after the bombing of water and sewage facilities and the disruption of food supplies. They predict that at least 900,000 Iraqi refugees will go to Iran and that two million people could be displaced from their homes within the country. They have not even tried to establish figures for those who may go to Kuwait, Turkey, Syria or Jordan.

This is the true face of war: dead people, maimed people, starving people and thirsty people driven from their homes; miserable refugees searching for a safe place.

I am stating these unpleasant predictions from experts because yesterday on television I heard a financial analyst suggest that the volatility of the financial markets is due to the global uncertainty about war on Iraq. Having stated that position, he said “Maybe we should just get it over with”. Did he know that meant killing perhaps hundreds of thousands of people so that our financial markets could become stable? How convenient that would be for us; how inconvenient for Iraqis.

I do not really blame him because our North American vision of war from a distance and as seen on CNN has skewed our perception of war. We see explosions in the distance. We see lights in the night sky. All this explosion business is followed by some healthy looking North American analyst claiming success. I guess it depends on a person's definition of success.

The military strategist I referred to earlier recently wrote that one way to shock and awe Saddam Hussein is to remind him that the U.S. has “certain weapons” that can destroy deeply buried facilities. That sentence is not even a thinly veiled reference to the newest kind of nuclear weapons, the B-61 bunker busters. Los Angeles Times columnist William Arkin has confirmed that the U.S. is preparing to use nuclear bunker busters against Iraq. Senator Kennedy, after hearing this news last week, wrote in the Times :

A dangerous world just grew more dangerous. Reports that the administration is contemplating the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in Iraq should set off alarm bells that this could not only be the wrong war at the wrong time, but it could quickly spin out of control.

Initiating the use of nuclear weapons would make a conflict with Iraq potentially catastrophic.

Why? Because:

Nuclear weapons are in a class of their own for good reasons.... They have been kept separate from other military alternatives out of a profound commitment to do all we can to see that they are never used again.... It makes no sense to break down the firewall that has existed for half a century between nuclear conflict and any other form of warfare.

By raising the possibility that nuclear weapons could be part of a first strike against Iraq, the American administration would be letting the nuclear genie out of the bottle.

This policy [would] deepen(s) the danger of nuclear proliferation by, in effect, telling non-nuclear states that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter a potential U.S. attack and by sending a green light to the world's nuclear states that it is permissible to use them. Is this the lesson we want to send to North Korea, Pakistan and India or any other nuclear power?

The use of nuclear weapons in Iraq in the absence of an imminent, overwhelming threat to... national security would bring a near-total breakdown in relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world. At a minimum, it would lead to a massive rise in anti-Americanism in the Arab world and a corresponding increase in sympathy for terrorists who seek to do us harm.

The senator concludes by saying, “Our nation”--meaning the U.S.--“long a beacon of hope, would overnight be seen as a symbol of death, destruction and aggression”.

These reports of the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons are very disturbing. They force me to ask: Do Canadians want to be part of an attack through which the principle we have upheld for 50 years, that is, of holding back nuclear weapons is broken? It is a principle which has served the world well.

I speak today because I want my colleagues and all Canadians to face the realities of war, the realities for the people of Iraq and the people of their region. I want us all to consider the repercussions on the global community, on the struggle against terrorism, on the future recruitment of terrorists and on the reputation of Canada in the world. I want us to ask ourselves if the military strategies that I have described and which were in the paper and on television last week and have never been denied by anybody in authority in the United States, are used and if the results and repercussions that I have also described coming from experts who know about these things, do all those horrible things seem to my colleagues to be a proportional response, an appropriate response to the threat posed by the situation in Iraq today?

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments. I certainly disagree with much of what she had to say. I believe she based her evidence on a Los Angeles Times article and this whole nuclear strategy which she is proposing that is hypothetical at this point.

What is not hypothetical at this point is that yes, there are dead people, maimed people, starved people and thirsty people already in Iraq at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Those things have already occurred under the leadership of that dictator in that country. We have seen what he has done to his own people. Our colleague from Elk Island outlined how Saddam Hussein even had his own sons-in-law put to death because they told the truth about his true nature and what was going on in Iraq.

I have yet to hear from members on the government side today what they propose. What is the solution? What should be done if Saddam Hussein does not comply? I would like to hear that from someone on the government side. We have not heard that at all today.

Once again we have heard from the member that we should be cautious and that war is horrible. We know that. No one wants to go to war, not one person in this country. At the same time do we sit idly by and let an evil man continue to go unchecked? What is the answer? What is the hon. member's answer to that question?

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that there are hungry and thirsty people in Iraq today. There are millions in Africa who are hungry and thirsty. There are millions in North Korea who are starving to death. It is this obsession with one dictator, one evil person in the world that has put me off personally right from the beginning. I remember asking in October why it was that one nation got to pick the dictator of the hour.

For example, in considering threats to world safety there was another interesting article in the Washington Post that said yes, Colin Powell has the rods to prove nuclear activity. He has the trucks pulling up and moving these rods around. Oops, the only problem is it is all in North Korea, but the President of the United States wants to go to Iraq and not North Korea. Containment is good in North Korea, which is far more threatening with its abilities and capabilities than Iraq, but the president does not want to go to Korea. He wants to go to Iraq.

One of the columnists wrote that Colin Powell or the whole administration has taken fuzzy evidence about Saddam Hussein and made it very scary and has taken very scary evidence about North Korea and kept it very fuzzy. We do not have to allow someone else to decide for us which is the worst dictator in the world at the present time. In trying to maintain peace, one is searching for connections and diplomatic ways of reaching all these people and helping them to build a more democratic state and culture.

What I object to is the demonization of one of them. I ask, what happened to Osama bin Laden? I think he has become Osama been forgotten.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member on her very thoughtful presentation. I am sure she, like many of us, is receiving more and more pleas from her constituents and other thoughtful Canadians to really consider the question of whether it has not reached the point where Canada, if it is to provide leadership in this whole debate, should not declare itself a no war nation. The fact of the matter is that ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki we have known that war is an anachronism for reasons the member herself has elaborated upon.

Could the hon. member elaborate further on what she sees as the alternative approach to dealing with the kind of threat that we face today as a result of the escalation of tensions and the almost seemingly inevitable move toward the brink of war in Iraq?

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the hon. member was my friend and would not put me on the spot such as she has. I agree with her that my correspondence is running currently 100 to 2 in favour of not going to Iraq. A great percentage of that 100 is against going under any circumstances.

On her question of our becoming a no war nation, most people who know me know I would agree with that. I was very impressed visiting Switzerland which apparently has one of the highest standards of living in the world. My feeling is it is because the Swiss do not waste it on building destructive forces within their country. However, they have a particular geographic location which may make that possible, I am not sure.

I do not think that Canadians and Canada are quite as far along the pattern of evolution as to be able to come to that consensus just yet. Hopefully the day will come when we can get to that point and stop wasting money on things that destroy and kill other people. There is an escalation in tension today. It is unfortunate and we are in a particularly tricky position here, but I think that our Prime Minister is doing an excellent job.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this important issue.

We will recall that in the aftermath of September 11 many Americans and others asked the question, “Why us? Why is it these people hate us?” There was a genuine sense of bewilderment. Why in heaven's name would people fly airplanes into buildings with the avowed purpose of destroying as many innocent people as possible?

On the other side of the equation, Muslims were saying, “Our religion has been hijacked”. They reacted with shame and anger. They were upset that their otherwise peaceful religion was being hijacked by people who had a strange and peculiar version of Islam.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a forum in Taiwan on Asia-Pacific security. The Taiwanese are naturally fairly concerned about 400 missiles pointed at their island by the PRC.

The panellists were asked, what were the root causes of terrorism? I must admit that none of us had a very satisfactory answer. Some would say poverty, but not all poor people are terrorists. Some would say religion, yet there are a lot of religious people in this world and they are by no means terrorists. Some would talk about ethnicity and race, but again those are not very satisfactory answers when trying to come to some of the root causes of terrorism. Possibly in this world we will never arrive at the root causes of terrorism, at least not in this lifetime.

I would like to examine some of the root causes of terrorism in this particular context and look at why I am suggesting that our analysis is in fact fairly deeply flawed.

We as a western society lack an understanding of violence based on religion. We are a secular society and do not understand or comprehend religious people at any level. We mouth shibboleths about freedom of religion and then hope that people go off and do their religion in some private little sphere. We therefore have no context or understanding or dialogue because we have privatized religious expression. When an event like September 11 happens, we tend to castigate Islam instead of going just a little bit deeper.

Stephen Schwartz has written a book called The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror . In it he tries to extricate Islam from the demonizing tendencies of Washington plutocrats, the intellectually lazy media, and Islam's own extremist sects. His thesis states:

The princes of Saudi Arabia share power and the fabulous wealth of their petro-dollars with a hereditary priestly hierarchy overseeing a cultic travesty of Islam known as Wahhabism, after its 18th-century founder. Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was a poorly educated, narrow-minded, homicidal fanatic whose idiosyncratic, austere and uncharitable vision for his religion flew in the face of its own teachings and those accorded to its Prophet.

al-Wahhab saw himself as an equal to the prophet Muhammad--this, of course, most people in Islam considered to be a heresy.

Not blessed with false modesty, or indeed any modesty at all, he believed that other Muslims who did not agree with him were in fact unbelievers and that other faiths needed to be humiliated or destroyed. He banned books, music, and destroyed the graves of Muslim saints.

This virulent form of Islamic fundamentalism would merely be a band of crazies running around the deserts of Saudi Arabia if it was not for the house of Sa'ud.

Needless to say al-Wahhab did not endear himself either to his neighbours or to the Ottoman Empire at the time. He had to seek refuge with a local set of bandits. The bandits came from the house of Muhammad bin Sa'ud. The two families had an unholy alliance, which was in fact cemented by marriage. The Sa'ud family took care of the political power and the Wahhabi family the religious authority. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement cemented by marriage. If the Wahhabi sect announced that a certain group of Muslims were unbelievers then they were fair game for murder, rape, robbery, et cetera, and the leadership of the al-Sa'ud house enthusiastically pursued that.

Schwartz says this merger of extremist ideology and absolute state was the first example of totalitarianism. It preceded Hitler and Stalin by about 200 years. Who would care except that these murderous crazies struck it—

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is great to have a history lesson, but could the member please speak to the motion.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I hope the House would understand that for the Speaker to address the issue of relevancy would take far too long and I probably would not be relevant.

I know that from time to time members need some time to develop their subject matter to arrive at the point of debate. I am sure that in this instance, no different than most others, the hon. member for Scarborough East will in fact address the issue of the day.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

So these crazies struck it fabulously rich. First the British and then the Americans in 1945 struck a deal with the Saudis to control the production of oil through a company called Aramco. The cruelty, greed and hypocrisy of the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance was matched only by the behaviour of the United States through big oil. Endless time and dollars were spent on prettifying the extremist and terrorist origins of the Saudi monarchy. The Wahhabi terrorists were sanitized for the American-western public.

However now it is starting to unravel. Schwartz writes:

...the Saudi aristocracy had become an unparalleled symbol of debauchery, ostentation and waste, as well as ignorance, prejudice and brutality.

But as guilt money, they send huge amounts to the Wahhabi whose clerics control schools and mosques all over the world including Canada and the United States. Sermons and terrorism come from the same package. Is it any accident that 15 out of the 19 terrorists that drove the airplanes into the buildings were in fact from Saudi Arabia?

Why then is President Bush so keen to attack Iraq? If this war is against terrorists, why not confront that reality? Saddam Hussein is a murderous crazy, but he is hated by the Wahhabis because he is too secular.

Iraq has a significant population of Shia-muslims as does Iran. The Wahhabi dislike them as well. Osama bin Laden cannot survive without Saudi funds. The al-Qaeda is a Wahhabi terrorist outfit.

Why would we spend a lot of time invading Iraq, getting rid of Saddam Hussein and in fact doing the al-Qaeda a favour? The terrorists of September 11 are up in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. They will be delighted to see Saddam Hussein go because he is as much an enemy of Wahhabi as that infidel, George Bush. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. In a perverse sort of way President Bush and Osama bin Laden have a common enemy.

It does not get much crazier than this. Many reasons have been advanced against our proceeding into a war against Iraq, not the least of which is that some of the evidence is suspect.

I noted that in the commentary on the evidence presented by Secretary of State Powell yesterday, probably the weakest link had to do with the connection between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden.

This is not a war against the terrorism of September 11. This is another agenda all together. If in fact President Bush succeeds there may well be a regime change. However that regime change could and might possibly look like Saudi Arabia, fabulous wealth for a few, and support for Wahhabi and its murderous version of Islam preached worldwide.

We may all dance around resolution 1441. The Alliance wants Canada to go to war with or without resolution 1441. The NDP does not want us to go to war even if the UN approves resolution 1441. The government awaits debate coming out of resolution 1441 from the Security Council. Meanwhile Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein share the view that resolution 1441 is irrelevant.

Saudi Arabia ducks the issue. It does not want the flow of its wealth, its fabulous wealth, jeopardized, but at the same time it nurtures and protects the Wahhabi which terrorizes other factions of Islam as well as Hindus and Christians. Meanwhile it builds its mythic version of an Islamic state worldwide.

Let us stay focused. The terrorists of September 11 would like nothing more than the west opening up another front. We should deal with Osama bin Laden and his merry group of fanatics, confront Wahhabi wherever we find it, appeal to the spiritual leaders of Islam, Christianity and Judaism that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael wants no part of having his name used to justify murder and mayhem.

Canada should offer itself up for further peacemaking activities in Afghanistan. By doing this we stay within a principled response to the UN resolutions and the fight against terrorism.

Those are the comments I wish to offer in our debate today. I want to make it very clear that our concern is that we stay focused on the terrorism that emanated from September 11. That was the terrorism that in fact affected us all.

[Jim Abbott, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as my friend from Wild Rose said, the member for Scarborough East certainly gave us a tremendous insight on world events and religion and so on and so forth, but he had absolutely nothing whatsoever to say about the motion presently before the House.

The motion before the House is designed specifically by the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition, seconded by the Bloc Québécois, to get the House to a point where members of the House of Commons would have the opportunity to represent their constituents in this place, to act in a democratic way in this place and to be able to vote on the question of war.

The government has created a situation whereby we are unable, in this chamber, to represent our constituents. Yes, we can come here and make speeches such as the member made, such as all of us have the opportunity to make, but we cannot come here and do what we must do, which is to act responsibly, act transparently and act on behalf of the people of Canada.

The question on the floor today is about a vote.

I noted that the member talked about the fact that people do not want to dance around resolution 1441 and stated that Saudi Arabia wants to duck this issue. He said let us stay focused. So let us stay focused and let me ask my friend, will he support the motion, which would permit democracy to come back to the House of Commons?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am glad the member opposite is finally starting to get focused, because the issue here is to look at the false premise that underlies a lot of our so-called posturing around Iraq. The issue is that we have not done an analysis of what motivated the terrorists of September 11. In some respects, it is almost a discrete silo. If we in fact had done an analysis, we might be able to say to ourselves that the terrorists are in fact somewhere else, that they are not in Baghdad. The terrorists are somewhere else. It is a separate issue altogether.

As to the issue of the vote, I looked at the motion and initially thought that it seemed plausible. Then, upon reading further, I noted that it states we are to “concur in the decision by the government regarding Canada's involvement in military action to disarm Saddam Hussein”. That is just a terrific idea except that the Parliament of Canada will be voting on something that has already happened. For argument's sake, if the government today decided that troops were to be dispatched, then on the following day we would debate this and vote on it. That would be a tremendous message to our military people if the vote were a very ambiguous vote, so I will not be supporting this motion.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Madam Speaker, I give respect to the Canadian people for their decision at voting time when they placed the government in charge and gave it a mandate to run the country. I give the cabinet full respect in the responsibility to enter into discussions and make very important decisions regarding international affairs such as those before the world today. I respect that all the way.

What the motion asks is that once the executive makes a decision that it give all members in the House the opportunity to concur in that decision. The government would make that decision based on information we would never have. Understandably I do not expect to get information that the executive would get with regard to the situation for security reasons and intelligence reasons. I would expect the cabinet to have a lot more information so that it could make a decision, but I do want to be respected enough in this democratic country to be given the opportunity to concur or not concur in that decision on behalf of the people of Wild Rose.

Would this member not like to be able to do the same thing for the constituents of his riding?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I made the point of pulling out security resolution 1441. It is actually two pages of whereases and three pages of resolutions, with two more annexes. The final and 13th paragraph of the resolution states, “Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences...”. I do not particularly appreciate voting on something prior to what may actually happen, so I think the motion is premature. I think the motion is immaterial at the present time.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to commend my party and my foreign affairs critic for bringing forward the motion so that we can debate in the House what is right now one of the most important issues facing our country and the world community.

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Kootenay—Columbia.

We have started the debate. This morning the Minister of Foreign Affairs came to the foreign affairs committee and laid out the government position. What has happened here is that we have brought forward a motion so that in the democratic traditions this country is built on we can debate and discuss the issue and put to a vote whether our soldiers should or should not go.

I listened to my colleague from Mississauga, to his arguments about not voting for this. It is typical, because he has probably been told by his government and his whip, cracking the whip on him, that he is not going to support it, but that really does not hold water. He is a member of Parliament, elected by the people to come to this chamber to debate and vote.

That is the whole purpose of the motion put forward by the Alliance and supported by the Bloc. This morning even the NDP members had this motion out in the foreign affairs committee because they felt that there was a need to vote on this important issue, on which we can agree and disagree. Of course we disagree with the position of the NDP, but that is fine and acceptable. In our democratic society we have agreements and we have disagreements, but at the end of the day the elected representatives must have the choice to vote. We can argue about it, and I know that my hon. colleague from Mississauga is a lawyer so as a lawyer he can argue in any direction he wants, which he is doing right now by saying he is not going to support the motion because, as he put it, it is after the fact.

The bottom line is still that the Parliament of Canada will have to vote on the issue. My colleague's own government said this when it was in opposition.

As my colleague from Wild Rose said, we have respect for the cabinet. The cabinet, the government, has been elected to govern the country, so it will make a decision. If it is going to make a decision it should be brought here to Parliament so that we can all debate the issue and give the pros and the cons and, at the end of the day, so that Canadians know what their elected representatives think. Many have reservations about this and many do not. As we heard from a previous speaker, she had her arguments. I am glad she brought up those arguments here. Canadians can listen to her arguments here and on CPAC and can make judgments on them.

The question still remains. I heard the government House leader talk about the motion and not bringing this to a vote. It is amazing how the government plays with words and twists them around so it is not caught. It is amazing how the government can twist its words, say it does not want to do this and then shut down debate on what those members were making demands for when they were in opposition. Talk about a double standard.

Coming to the point about the situation with Iraq, my colleagues on both sides have talked about the pros and cons on Iraq and many have said no and have put forth all kinds of arguments. I would like to give my point of view, and I have two questions on the whole issue.

First, resolution 1441 was passed unanimously by the Security Council of the United Nations. The resolution was to say to Iraq, “Let inspectors in. Give them free access. If you do not, there will be consequences”. The world body made a clear-cut decision by giving a message to Iraq.

Irrespective of the facts, my colleague asked why Iraq, why not other places, why not North Korea? Right now we are dealing with Iraq and the world body made a clear statement. What do we have after that? The inspectors went over there and the chief inspector had to come back to the United Nations and say that Iraq was not cooperating. Excuse me, but we told Iraq to cooperate with this. The resolution was given in October and we are still sitting in the same spot, with nothing resolved. As of today about half an hour ago, the President of the United States was saying the same thing, that he is not complying.

The question is, why is he not complying? Why is he not listening to the world's voice? Here today we are standing up and saying that we do not want to go to war. Yes, I agree. Nobody wants to go to war. People here are saying that they got phone calls. Yes, I got phone calls. Let us say we do not want to go to war. Who wants to go to war? In this western society we have seen the ravages of World War I and World War II. Do we think that anybody would be in favour of war in this country that has seen the ravages of World War I and World War II? No, nobody will be in favour of war.

Yes, we know that we are not at war with the people of Iraq. As a matter of fact, we are saying that there will be suffering there and we do not want any suffering. So I am asking a simple question: Why is Saddam Hussein not listening to the world's voice and saying simply and point blank “Yes, I will dismantle”?

I now come to the second point. To all the people who are accusing us of going to war to bomb the kids, I ask them, what have they done to tell Saddam Hussein to go? If he voluntarily goes tomorrow, we know there will be no war. If he goes away, there is no question of war or anything there. I am saying no, we are not going over there, we are not sending him petitions. The people of the region who will be affected by this war, none of them are talking out there.

My colleagues from the opposite side of the House will not talk about telling Saddam to go. Let me ask the Liberal member who went all the way to Iraq, did she ask Saddam? Did she tell Saddam to go for the sake of the people of Iraq? No, she did not. She came back over here and said he is a nice guy, that Tariq Aziz is a nice guy. Every time the inspectors go before the Security Council, what do we have? We have Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister, standing up and saying, “We will comply. We will open our doors”. The doors should have been open right from the beginning.

Let us be united, with one voice, in saying to Saddam, “Either open your doors or go”. Then there will be no war, because nobody wants war.

What about our own soldiers? Do hon. members think we like saying here to put the lives of our own soldiers in danger? Why would we want to go to war with the people of Iraq? They have been suffering over there. The Shiites, as my colleague from Mississauga said, and the Kurds are all suffering under Saddam Hussein. Do we think that Saddam Hussein is somebody we should stand up and clap for? Should we give him an award for being a good ruler? What has he done? For all the years he has been ruling in Iraq, Madam Speaker, give me one achievement of his for his country such that members of his own country, Iraqis, would stand behind him, except for those who justify him, who benefit from him.

The bottom line is this. We should stand up, speak with a unanimous voice and tell Saddam Hussein, first, that we are sick and tired of these games he is playing, and second, to go voluntarily, and then there would be no war. It is as simple as that.

[Sarkis Assadourian, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I was following the comments of my colleague from the Alliance very carefully. He spoke about resolution 1441 and he blamed Saddam Hussein for not complying with and cooperating in a proactive way on resolution 1441. He is 100% correct.

At the same time, the same resolution calls upon the western countries, upon England and the United States, to provide the inspectors with intelligence. So far everybody complains. If the U.S. says it has intelligence, the inspectors ask to have the intelligence so they can do their jobs. If the U.S., England, France and other western countries claim to have intelligence but do not provide that intelligence to the inspectors, how do we expect the inspectors to do their jobs?

If we are going to lay blame, I think it is fair to blame Saddam Hussein for not being proactive, but it is also fair to blame western countries for not being proactive by providing the inspectors with proper tools to do their job, to inspect the place and report back us. If there are weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons or chemical weapons, we will know where they are so we can destroy them or take action accordingly. It is fair that the west be asked to provide intelligence, and not one week before the bombing.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am a little stunned and surprised to hear the member say that the west should supply the evidence and the intelligence.

I do not think he tuned into the last report given by Dr. Blix and the inspectors which said that Iraq was not complying. Perhaps I should tell my colleague why we have inspectors in Iraq. What is their job? What is their duty? Why were they sent over there? They were sent over there so they could look for evidence.

Dr. Blix and the inspectors went in front of the Security Council and said quite clearly that Iraq was not complying. Perhaps the member will go back and read the testimony. That is exactly what the international community said and what the inspectors said.

Yesterday, Mr. Powell and even his own foreign affairs minister said that there was disturbing evidence. I do not know what more this member wants.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, the subject matter of today's debate is actually excellent. I congratulate the Canadian Alliance for bringing the general subject matter together.

The hon. member knows that debate among parliamentarians and Canadians is happening in other forums. I know it is happening out in the lobby on his side, in the lobby on our side, in parliamentary committees and in caucus meetings. I know my colleagues and his colleagues are engaged both together and across the floor. It is happening in the offices of government in diplomatic intercourse. The debate is going on everywhere and this place is a very important place for Canadians.

The motion that has been moved today invites us all to vote on the issue, vote on confidence or on the subject matter, after we have already made a decision as a country to put our forces into some engagement somewhere if we have to do it. I suggest that will not happen in any other country in the world, after we make the move with the confidence of the House, because if it is not there we will surely know about it. Voting after we put our troops out in the theatre is not the right thing to do and that is what the motion today invites us to prepare for and do. I suggest that is the wrong thing.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Madam Speaker, perhaps if he had listened to my speech he would have understood why we brought forward this motion by saying after the day. First, the government was elected to run the country so it has the authority and is required to make decisions but after the decisions are made, they are brought here.

One of the exchanges that took place this afternoon was that the Prime Minister said that if the Alliance would withdraw its motion the government would agree to a vote. The only reason we did not accept that was because the government refused to put the next day as the deadline.

Our motion calls for the next day even if Parliament is closed and the government makes a decision. However it was not willing to accept that because it then could recall Parliament maybe two months after the decision was taken based on this motion. We were not willing to agree to that which is why we refused the request of the Prime Minister when he promised there would be a vote in the House.

[Jim Abbott, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to bring the debate specifically to the motion today. I recognize that we have heard many sides and there are many sides on the issue. Should we be aligning ourselves with our allies? Should we be waiting for the UN? The NDP takes the position of no war at all. That is good. That is debate.

However the debate today specifically is about a vote to have a vote. Why are we doing that? First, let me say that the House leader for the Liberals displayed a totally disingenuous attitude toward what transpired, as my friend from Calgary just told us.

My party whip was very specific when he said that he would take the Prime Minister up on his offer if the Prime Minister would guarantee that he would schedule the official opposition an allotted day the day after the government makes a decision.

However, the disingenuous comments by the House leader who said that what they were really talking about was the first day that the House was sitting, leads to the issue that my friend from Calgary just pointed out.

This kind of slipperiness on the part of the House leader is really unhelpful in this situation. Our motivation, very simply, is to bring democracy back to the House of Commons in Canada. There is nothing more complex about it than that.

The government has studiously refused to do what it asked for when it was in the opposition. When it was on this side of the House in 1991, in the previous altercation against Saddam Hussein, it was crying for and demanding a vote in this place and yet when it gets to that side over there it says, no. We have only one way to do it and we have done it with this motion.

I will be the first person to admit that the wording of the motion is very detailed and very arcane but the problem is that to satisfy the requirements of the table and the Chair in this place, we have to use very precise words as prescribed by the table and Chair in this place. We have done the only thing that we can do, which is to call for a vote to have a vote, to basically confirm or to give authority to say that the executive, the government that would make the decision, made the correct decision and, indeed, it is a vote of confidence.

The House leader was totally disingenuous in attacking this because the motion is based on many of the motions that the government House leader himself moves on an almost routine basis. I did a quick review of the year 2002 from September to June and I noted that the government House leader had moved some 80 motions of this type.

We got the idea for the motion from the House leader of the Liberals. Therefore it is totally disingenuous on the part of himself, on the part of the Prime Minister and in terms of the feigned outrage of some of the backbenchers, to say that we cannot do this, that it is bogus or that it is out of place, and so on and so forth. It is the only way we can bring democracy back to the House of Commons.

I am proud to boast that democracy is alive and well in Kootenay--Columbia. The people of Kootenay--Columbia have a member of Parliament who believes in listening to the people of the constituency. They have a member of Parliament who has circulated, either through my website, my homepage or through publications in my constituency, a request for input from people in my constituency. It has been most gratifying to receive e-mails, faxes and phone calls. I have attempted to respond to every one of them that I possibly could. Many people were opposed to the position of my party and many people were supportive of the position of my party, but I learned so much because, after all is said and done, I am only one person.

I do not have all the answers nor do I have all the intellect but I do have 86,000 people in my constituency who are engaged in this issue and engaged in the democratic process. I come to the House of Commons and I cannot exercise my democratic right to vote on behalf of the people of Kootenay--Columbia. To the Liberals I say, shame on them. It is just plain wrong.

We have made the point very clearly and very specifically that in our form of government that although approximately 60% of the people who turned up at the ballot box voted against the Liberals or voted for another alternative, the Liberals are a majority government with only 40% of the popular vote. Nonetheless, that is our British parliamentary system and they have a majority government. The Prime Minister has the right to form the government as requested by the Governor General.

We do understand that the Liberals have the right to make this decision but, doggone it, I demand the right on behalf of the people of Kootenay--Columbia to express a vote. That was why I was sent here. I was not sent here just to make speeches. I was sent here to represent the people through voting in this Chamber. This is a situation that is intolerable.

We have seen time and time again that the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office have treated not only the backbenchers but indeed this entire Chamber as second class citizens. They simply go ahead and effect changes without ever referring or feel that they have to refer back to the House of Commons.

On an issue like this, on an issue of life and death for our brave armed forces, for all of those personnel, for all of their families, for the safety, the welfare and the security of Canadians, this is an issue of gigantic proportions. For us to be frozen out of the democratic process in a place that is supposed to be at the core of our democracy, the House of Commons, is just unspeakable.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague a question that really was asked by the newly appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the member for Brampton Centre.

During the debate of my colleague from Kootenay--Columbia, the parliamentary secretary said that the motion was too confusing and asked if the member could make it simpler.

What this motion is about is that we want to have a vote. I was wondering if the member for Kootenay--Columbia might be able to perhaps use his wax crayons or pencil crayons to spell out clearly one more time the essence of the motion for our friend across the way.