Madam Speaker, I too am pleased to speak on this motion, to say that we wish we could have supported it, but have no choice but to oppose it for many reasons, which we have been outlining since the debate started and which I want to review.
The first part of the motion refers to the substantial sense of the House, voted on March 20, in support of the government's decision not to participate in the military intervention in Iraq. It is odd that the government would recognize—that is what it is doing—that, as a result of an opposition day of the Bloc Quebecois, whose motion was votable for once, this House had the opportunity to set out its position on the military intervention in Iraq.
Incidentally, it makes no sense that the government itself did not call on Parliament to express its support for or disagreement with the sending of troops to combat, because that is what it was all about.
Parliament said no. The government made a proposal, albeit at the last moment, not to support this war in Iraq. The very day the Prime Minister made his statement, I reviewed all statements made in this connection. Clearly, the whole time, the Prime Minister had left the door open to going either way.
He talked very eloquently today of the need to make this decision based on principles. I agree with this. However, the fact is that numerous times in this House the Prime Minister agreed with the fact that resolution 1441 paved the way for serious consequences. He told the House that this did not mean just a little parade, but war.
The Prime Minister recognized what few countries and very few experts recognized, which is that, in itself, resolution 1441 allowed the United States, for example, to go to war against Iraq.
When he said, “No, Canada will not support it, because this war seeks a regime change”, I heartily applauded him. He said, “No, Canada will not support it”. However, this question of regime change has not only been around for a few days or since the Prime Minister's visit to Mexico. It has been around, for those who follow current events, for a very long time.
Of course, the Security Council did not talk about a regime change because this is not permitted under international law. So, yes, we appreciated it when the Prime Minister said that Canada would not be taking part in this war. However, it must be said that, until the last second, he could have gone either way.
We cannot help but think of such things as the very large demonstrations that took place in Quebec City and Montreal. There has never been such a large one in Montreal except at the time of the failure of Meech Lake. That takes us back, but other than that one there has never been such an outpouring of public opinion.
No doubt the Prime Minister has also taken the time to see where public opinion was headed. We cannot forget that an election campaign was going on in Quebec. We know that the highest percentage of people opposed to the war in Iraq and the situation in Iraq was in Quebec.
The Prime Minister goes on in his second point to refer to the:
—unbreakable bonds of values, family, friendship and mutual respect that will always characterize Canada's relationship with the United States of America and the United Kingdom;
Of course we share this sentiment. It is important to remind the Americans that what we are opposed to is the decision taken by the American administration. It is important to differentiate between the two. All colleagues must differentiate between the American people and the American administration.
In this connection, I would like to add one thing. Quebeckers and all Canadians are strongly in support of the war against terrorism, which is why they have grave doubts about the effectiveness of this war the U.S. administration has decided to wage on Iraq. Who can believe that the world is safer today than it would have been if we had continued the peaceful disarmament the UN and the UN inspectors were facilitating? Who can say that we, or the Americans, are any safer today?
The images that we are seeing—and especially those that we are not seeing, but that we will learn about in the coming weeks and months—will fuel the anger and the desire to exact vengeance felt by so many young and not so young Arab people, Muslim Arabs who will want to exact vengeance.
This is an extremely important issue. We have said it before; nothing justifies terrorism; however, it cannot be said that nothing fuels it. We believe—and no one can take away the legitimacy of this belief—that the war in Iraq will poison the region and serve to fan the flames of terrorism.
The motion refers to, and I quote:
our pride in the work of the members of the Canadian Forces who are deployed in the Persian Gulf region—.
Obviously, these soldiers are in our thoughts. However, we cannot help but be concerned when the Prime Minister says that our troops cannot be sent into combat based on principle, when 31 people, maybe more, are in combat, even though the Prime Minister has said that it is an unjustified conflict. How are we supposed to reconcile these two ideas?
In closing, I would like to say that the reconstruction of Iraq must be carried out under the UN banner for the reasons I have just mentioned. It is important to show that what we are working for is justice for the people of Iraq and not profits for some state. We must not impose a model that would not come from the people of Iraq themselves.
We have seen in Afghanistan that democracy cannot be imposed, because combatants are taking up arms again, which can be dangerous. Kabul is not even close to being safe; only certain neighbourhoods are. The human rights, freedom and justice that we would like to see prevail are only just starting to take hold.