Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by reading the motion again just to remind people exactly what we are debating today. This is a Canadian Alliance motion, presented by the leader of the Canadian Alliance. The motion reads:
That the House of Commons express its regret and apologize for offensive and inappropriate statements made against the United States of America by certain Members of this House; that it reaffirm the United States to be Canada's closest friend and ally and hope that the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is successful in removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power; and that the House urge the Government of Canada to assist the coalition in the reconstruction of Iraq.
It seems to me that the motion probably could be passed by unanimous consent and I am sure we will see full support for it later in the day. It would be hard to understand how there could not be support for it.
I hope the government will recognize that we cannot get to the last part of our motion, which is to urge the government of Canada to assist the coalition in the reconstruction of Iraq, of providing the necessary humanitarian assistance and having democracy, freedom and liberty in Iraq until the second last part of our motion is fulfilled; that the U.S.- led coalition in Iraq remove Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. As long as his regime is in power, nothing that resembles a democracy or humanitarianism can possibly be instituted in that country.
Therefore, it is important that be reinforced. I hope now the government sees that. Certainly more and more Canadians are understanding that connection. They understand too that Saddam Hussein and his regime provide a very real, direct danger to our country and to Canadian citizens through their weapons of mass destruction and through many terrorist groups which are more than willing to deliver those weapons, as heinous as that sounds but then Saddam Hussein is not a nice man.
In approaching foreign affairs issues, we have seen the Liberal governments in Canada for the past 40 years or so seize every opportunity to differentiate Canadian foreign policy from that of the U.S. To be fair, Brian Mulroney and his government behaved differently. He treated our American neighbours and friends as neighbours and friends. As a result, we were able to negotiate extremely good trade agreements with our friends and neighbours.
His government deserves credit for that. It knew how we as a country should behave. In dealing with our best friend and neighbour, we should treat them as such. However, this government has taken every opportunity to differentiate between Canadian and American foreign policy, ignoring these great shared interests between our two countries.
The Liberals seem to believe that this enhances Canadian sovereignty somehow, disagreeing automatically. However sovereignty means the freedom to make decisions based on our own values and interests, not based on the position of any other country or the United Nations for that matter.
The pressure to automatically oppose the Untied States, as this government so often does on major foreign policy issues, undermines Canadian sovereignty just as surely as the pressure to automatically support the United States and its position undermines Canadian sovereignty. In fact I would argue it is worse for any Canadian government to automatically oppose the United States. Most of the positions we take on foreign affairs issues and most of our values are shared. Canada and the U.S. seem to be on the same page since we share values and interests that determine our positions on these foreign affairs issues.
One very strong Canadian value is multilateralism. The government talks about that value all the time. I would like to make a few points regarding that. It is ironic that members of this government, including the Deputy Prime Minister, have called the U.S. administration isolationists and unilateralists. We have heard that again and again in the House, and that is disturbing.
I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister. In his speech earlier today he in fact reversed that position. The tone of his speech was much different than we have heard from him and from others in the past. That is a start and it may be, I hope, an end to this unfortunate and misguided rhetoric.
Liberals seem to think that multilateralism means letting everyone else decide for us, and that includes the United Nations. On this side of the House, we recognize that true multilateralism means that each nation determines its own position, then they get together to try to find a workable consensus.
Multilateral institutions have been attacked recently but not by the United States. They have been attacked by governments either failing to bring a position to the table, like the Government of Canada on the war in Iraq, or those countries that have refused to try to build any kind of consensus, like the government of France, on the issue of Iraq. That is not multilateralism.
Another value that Canadians hold dearly is humanitarian compassion. To most Canadians, including those of us on this side of the House, the value includes defending people from mass murder and genocide, protecting civil liberties and safeguarding global peace and security, which is exactly what the coalition of over 40 nations is doing now in Iraq, by removing Saddam Hussein and his regime and trying to allow a democracy to be built from that.
Yet the government has refused to join these almost 50 responsible nations in their efforts to ensure the safety of Iraqis from this murderous regime of Saddam Hussein, to defend them against despotism and to prevent Saddam Hussein from destroying stability and security in the Middle East. The government has merely sat on the sidelines hurling some petty and hateful catcalls at those countries that have taken action. Most of those have been thrown and hurled directly against our closest friend and ally, the United States. That is strange because it is our best friend and neighbour, any way we look at it.
The very same government member who said she hated Americans and called them a name, which was about as unparliamentary as it gets, is also the co-chair of the Canada-Poland parliamentary friendship group. She was also the head of the Canadian delegation to NATO. However even government members, under the encouragement of the official opposition, saw fit to remove her from that position because she was not suitable after making that kind of comment against a very important member of the alliance.
Poland interestingly enough is part of the coalition that is committed to eliminating the oppressive and dangerous regime of Saddam Hussein but government members have not said that they hate the Polish. Nor have they said they hate the British, Australians, Czechs or any of the magnitude of other nations that support the coalition, and nor should they. They save these comments for our closest friend and ally, the United States.
The Liberal tendency to attack U.S. foreign policy at every opportunity seems to be based on insecurity and envy more than anything else. It puts those base and petty emotions above any assessment of Canadian traditional loyalties, Canadian security, Canadian interests and Canadian moral values. When America flexes its muscles the Canadian government feels helpless and ignored.
Canadians do not want the world to think that Canada is helpless to assert itself in the face of America might. They want to prove instead that Canada does not blindly follow U.S. foreign and defence policy. The Liberal way of showing this is to tweak the noses of the Americans and to poke their fingers in the eyes of the Americans whenever the Americans show their strength.
However there is another and far better way to deal with this situation, and that is for the government to choose to lead for a change.
Where has the Canadian government been on this issue of Iraq for the past 12 years? Saddam Hussein defied 17 UN resolutions while the U.S. and Britain used threat of force to keep Hussein back. Where was it when the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia chose to put troops on the border of Iraq to provide a show of force which may well have prevented the war in Iraq. We might have had the situation dealt with without war had Canada and other countries stood together with our allies to deal with the situation. Unfortunately this government and some other governments did not.
As a result, we have a war in Iraq. At the very least we could do something the government has not done. We could show support for our coalition allies who are fighting the war because we are not involved. We could show support for our Canadian troops who are fighting with those allies and at least respect them enough to show support to acknowledge they are involved in this war with our allies in trying to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.