Madam Speaker, I listened intently as the member spoke. He mentioned that he was born in the Middle East. Obviously he is concerned about what is happening there.
My question emanates from a number of speeches from the government side today. The members have said that Iraq is not the main threat. Some members have talked about North Korea and some have talked about other countries. The government would say Iraq is not the main threat.
I am at the point now where I am not sure if the weapons inspectors are there necessarily because they see Iraq as the main threat or if they are there because Iraq for the last 12 years has totally disregarded United Nations resolutions.
We are talking about the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq has. It is up to Iraq to clearly show that those weapons have been disarmed or eliminated. It is not the responsibility of the United Nations to go on a scavenger hunt or a search and rescue for these weapons.
The responsibility of the United Nations is to see the evidence that these weapons that everyone knows Iraq has have been destroyed. We are not there because Iraq is the greatest threat in the world. We are there because for 12 years we have not had the resolve from the United Nations to stand up to the resolutions it has put in place. The threat here is that the United Nations will end up becoming an old senior citizens debating club and lose its relevance.
I do not want Parliament to lose its relevance. We want Parliament to debate the issue of sending our people to war. We are not saying that once our soldiers are over there we will take a vote. We are saying when the government decides that we will side with our allies, if it does, then members will have the opportunity to stand up in the House and vote yes or no.
The New Democratic Party has said that regardless of what happens we should never go to war. The Canadian Alliance believes that we give the United Nations the opportunity for time. If the United Nations decides that the resolutions are not being upheld and that Iraq has not complied, then we believe we must side with our allies.
Let us all have the courage to stand up in the House and vote. Why is it a double standard now when the government argued so much in favour of a vote in 1991 or 1992 in the gulf war? Why has the government said that it was good then but it is not good now? Why is this member so adamantly opposed to standing up and being counted?