Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Windsor—St. Clair.
I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the motion. The first thing I would like to do is raise the question as to why we are debating this motion today. Like many Canadians, I have been watching TV and seeing the images of the war on Iraq, and seeing the images of the U.S. tanks rolling into the city of Baghdad. I think many people see the end in sight. Hopefully that will happen soon and we will not see more casualties.
However it raises an interesting question as to why the government decided to bring in this motion today reaffirming its decision of September 20 not to participate in the military intervention in Iraq and the other aspects of the motion.
I think the motion is a reactive motion. It is a motion that has come about as a result of the politics and the political debate that is taking place. It is in reaction to the official opposition motion that we debated last Thursday in the House.
It is a very sad statement that we are debating this motion when what we needed to see was a motion put before the House weeks and weeks ago, even before a war started, that would have clearly laid out, in a principled, clear and unequivocal way, the government's position in terms of a possible war at that time on Iraq.
I am very disappointed that we are debating a motion that is almost after the fact. It seems to me that it is a very classical Liberal motion. It is one that tries to cover everything all ways. It tries to cover both sides of the fence, so to speak, for the Liberals who want to have it all ways. When we read through the motion, it is characterized very much in that way.
As members know from the debate today, the NDP is not in support of the motion. We think the motion is very problematic and contradictory. It does not spell out in clear terms what the government is trying to accomplish. In fact, even the very first clause, which talks about a reaffirmation of the government's decision to not participate in the military intervention in Iraq, is hugely contradictory. As we know, from what we have seen every day during question period, during other debates that have taken place and through the debate that takes place in the media, the government's position has been very contradictory.
On the one hand, we hear from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Prime Minister and from the defence minister that Canada is not involved, and yet every day there is evidence and information that shows us that Canadian troops and Canadian personnel are participating in the gulf. They are on the ground, in the air and part of the AWACS that is participating in the targeting of bombing that is taking place. There has been information on what daughter is being sent to the 5th fleet. To say that the House is reaffirming a decision not to participate is simply not correct. All of the evidence shows us that the Government of Canada is participating in Bush's war on Iraq.
The other problem we have with the motion has to do with the fourth clause which states:
our hope that the U.S.-led coalition accomplishes its mission as quickly as possible with the fewest casualties;
That does not accurately describe what is taking place. On the one hand, the Canadian government is saying that we will not participate but, on the other hand, the Prime Minister and other representatives of the government are refusing to stand up and clearly articulate that this war is illegal under international law.
I remember the Minister of Foreign Affairs saying to the House that Canada respects the sovereign decision of the U.S. to go ahead with its invasion of Iraq. It seems to me that the very point of international law and the reason we raise the question of international law is that international law prevents states from making sovereign decisions that are illegal.
The particular clause I quoted, which talks about our hope that the U.S. coalition accomplishes its mission, is hypocritical because that mission, as we know, has to do with a regime change in Iraq. That has been clearly stated by the President of the United States.
Again we have very contradictory messages. We hear the Prime Minister saying that we do not support intervention for the purpose of a regime change and yet we have seen the involvement of 1,300 Canadian troops and personnel in an effort that is very much about a regime change in Iraq.
I think the best way we could have avoided casualties would have been to give a very clear signal that the United Nations weapons inspection process should have been given a chance to work. Somehow we have lost sight of the work in which the UN was engaged, which was about verification and accountability in the international community. This has been lost in this agenda. It has suddenly changed from weapons of mass destruction, which, by the way, were not found, to becoming a regime change.
We in the NDP have been consistent in our views on this. We are opposed to the mission that has been led by the U.S. It is a violation of international law and it is outside of the United Nations, and that allegedly the government also had serious questions with.
Another part of the government's motion that we have a lot of problems with in terms of the way it is characterized is the next part of the motion that reads:
the importance of self restraint on the part of all Members of the House in their comments on the war in Iraq while our American friends are in battle;
Presumably that part of the motion deals with what is being termed as anti-Americanism. However I think if we were to look at the debate that has taken place in the House, we would see that the government itself has ben playing into the whole idea of anti-Americanism to defend its position.
Yesterday during question period I asked the defence minister to clearly articulate Canada's position in terms of armed forces personnel being in the Persian Gulf. His response to me yesterday was:
--this perpetual NDP complaining, anti-Americanism does get on one's nerves after awhile.
That was the minister himself saying that, playing into and fostering this idea of anti-Americanism, when in actual fact the question had clearly been directed at the government in terms of calling on the government to clearly outline its position in terms of our troops and personnel in the area.
It was interesting to see that shortly after question period the defence minister was asked by the media in a scrum to cite the case of NDP anti-Americanism. The minister could not come up with anything except to say “Use your imagination”. Clearly he does not have any factual basis nor does he have any imagination.
I wanted to reference that particular point because I find it very frustrating that the government urges members to be restrained in the House but it uses the argument and defence of other people being anti-American to somehow defend its own position.
I think that within the international community, and Canada as a sovereign nation, we have the right and in fact the responsibility to be critical of policies, whether they be American or British. However to simply characterize that as being anti-American is an insult to the kind of debate that we need to have over international policy and law around war. We really take offence to that.
The last point I want to make concerns Canada's commitment to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq. We again have the same kind of doublespeak from the Liberal motion here. There is no mention of the United Nations. Even Tony Blair has said that he believes it is important for the United Nations to have a role. Why is the Government of Canada not being clear on its position?
We have seen George Bush undermine the United Nations. This would be an opportunity for Canada to clearly say that the role of the United Nations should be affirmed.