Mr. Speaker, I would first like to quote the three speeches that were presented at the time the United Nations was created.
The first was by William Lyon Mackenzie King who was the chairman of the Canadian delegation. I am quoting excepts because I do not have sufficient time to cover all the speeches. He said:
This Conference is meeting at a time without parallel in the history of human affairs. The present is one of those moments of transition when an old order is passing away. As representatives of the United Nations, we are all here to help lay the foundation of a new world order. The ends that we seek to serve transcend the limits of race and the bounds of nationality...
It is not the intention of the Canadian delegation to put forth in plenary session special amendments to the Proposals. Our delegation will express its point of view at an appropriate time and place on specific questions as they arise. Our sole preoccupation in any amendment which we may put forward or support at a later stage will be to help in creating an organization which over the years and decades to come will be strong enough and flexible enough to stand any strains to which it may be subjected.
We shall not be guided by considerations of national pride or prestige and shall not seek to have changes made for reasons such as these. We recognize the principle that power and responsibility must go hand in hand and that international security depends primarily upon the maintenance of an overwhelming preponderance of power on the side of peace...
In conclusion, may I express my firm conviction that the spirit in which we approach the great task of this Conference will determine the measure of its success. It is for each nation to remember that over all nations is humanity. It is for all to remember that justice is the common concern of mankind. The years of war have surely taught the supreme lesson that man and nation should not be made to serve selfish national ends, whether those ends be isolated self-defence of world domination. Nations everywhere must unite to save and to serve humanity.
There is a great passage also from the address by the Earl of Halifax, the chairman of the United Kingdom delegation. He said:
Here in San Francisco we have seen but the beginnings of a long and challenging endeavour. And there is a sense in which what we have done here is less important than what we have learnt here. We have learnt to know one another better; to argue with patience; to differ with respect; and at all times to pay honour to sincerity. That the thought of many men of many nations should thus have met in a large constructive task will have a value beyond price during the coming years, as stone by stone we carry on what we have here begun. Time alone can show whether the house that we have tried to build rests upon shifting sand, or, as I firmly hope, upon solid rock, to stand as shield and shelter against every storm.
The final speech from which I would like to quote is by Harry S. Truman, the president of the United States of America. He said:
The Charter of the United Nations which you have just signed is a solid structure upon which we can build a better world. History will honor you for it. Between the victory in Europe and the final victory in Japan, in this most destructive of all wars, you have won a victory against war itself.
It was the hope of such a Charter that helped sustain the courage of stricken peoples through the darkest days of the war. For it is a declaration of great faith by the nations of the earth--faith that war is not inevitable, faith that peace can be maintained.
If we had had this Charter a few years ago--and above all, the will to use it--millions now dead would be alive. If we should falter in the future in our will to use it, millions now living will surely die.
It has already been said by many that this is only a first step to a lasting peace. That is true. The important thing is that all our thinking and all our actions be based on the realization that it is in fact only a first step. Let us all have it firmly in mind that we start today from a good beginning and, with our eye always on the final objective, let us march forward...
This Charter, like our own Constitution, will be expanded and improved as time goes on. No one claims that it is now a final or a perfect instrument. It has not been poured into any fixed mold. Changing world conditions will require readjustments--but they will be readjustments of peace and not of war.
He went on:
What you have accomplished in San Francisco shows how well these lessons of military and economic co-operation have been learned. You have created a great instrument for peace and security and human progress in the world.
The world must now use it.
If we fail to use it, we shall betray all those who have died in order that we might meet here in freedom and safety to create it.
If we seek to use it selfishly--for the advantage of any one nation or any small group of nations--we shall be equally guilty of that betrayal.
The successful use of this instrument will require the united will and firm determination of the free peoples who have created it. The job will tax the moral strength and fiber of us all.
We all have to recognize--no matter how great our strength--that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please. No one nation, no regional group, can or should expect any special privilege which harms any other nation...
Out of this conflict have come powerful military nations, now fully trained and equipped for war. But they have no right to dominate the world. It is rather the duty of these powerful nations to assume the responsibility for leadership toward a world of peace. That is why we have here resolved that power and strength shall be used not to wage war, but to keep the world at peace, and free from the fear of war.
Perhaps we should revisit these declarations of the founding time of the United Nations once in a while. My first point that I wish to put on the table is that these thoughts at the time are still worth our courage and moral conviction today.
There is another matter about this whole situation confronting us today which I think has to be understood, and that is the efforts and the time allocated for disarmament have not been sufficient. I would like to quote a gentleman who was interviewed on the CBC station here at the end of January, Mr. Jon Wolfsthal, who is the deputy director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I will quote excerpts of his radio interview on CBC local. He said:
--if you look at how long the process took in South Africa even, it took us two years to verify once a decision had been made to disarm, that in fact they had effectively disarmed. And 10 years later, we're still monitoring nuclear materials in that country. In Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine we had to provide very concrete security guarantees to those countries as well as spend a lot of money. So, on the one hand yes, we do know co-operative disarmament when we see it. But this is not a one cookie cutter fits all circumstances type of situation.
If we are serious about disarmament, the inspectors are going to be the only effective way of achieving that and that's going to take a number of years. That may not fit the time scale of certain people in government or elsewhere, but if disarmament is the goal, we know that inspections work, but that it does take time.
...even though the Gulf War was a resounding military success in liberating Kuwait, we have destroyed more of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction through inspections after the war than we did during the military campaign. And I think that should be a lesson for our future activity.
That is the end of the quote by Mr. John Wolfsthal, Deputy Director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
If indeed in the days to come, or hours to come for that matter, the world should be precipitated into a war situation in the Middle East, then I believe that it behooves us and parliamentarians around the world to ensure that the multilateral institution we have created, the United Nations, is supported and remains as relevant as it has been in the last few months leading up to the situation.
I would pray that we would indeed have the courage and the moral fortitude to do what needs to be done. If we need to strengthen the United Nations, we do so, and we look beyond today into the next 50 years and into the next 100 years, because we do not want to avoid war only today. We want to keep avoiding war for decades and centuries to come.