Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Laval Centre for presenting the motion. This is not the first and it will not be the last. I would hope it would be the last because we have worked on this in the past and we have to get on with debating other issues in the House to do with the Armenian-Turkish relationship. I hope we support this motion and go forward from here.
I want to reflect on the comments made by my colleague from Thunder Bay. He mentioned that Turkey is ready to join the European Union. That is a false statement because Turkey has tried for the last 30 or 40 years to join and every time it has been blocked for many reasons. The first issue was the human rights treatment by the Turkish government against a minority. The second issue was the Kurdish minority treatment. The third issue was the Armenian genocide. The fourth issue was the Cyprus issue. If it does not address these four issues, Turkey will never be a European Union country.
My colleague mentioned that the Turkish constitution is such a fantastic instrument. He may be right, but the Turkish constitution was written after the genocide. No constitution in the world would provide that type of clause. Even the Hitler constitution did not provide for genocide of the Jews. The Rwanda constitution and the Bosnia constitution never provided a clause to kill a minority.
These things are done in the name of national security. Turkey at the time felt that the Armenians were a threat to national security: “Let us eliminate them; let us solve it with a final resolution and get it over with”.
My colleague from the NDP mentioned Iraq, the U.S. and Canada. She is 100% right. We can afford to upset the U.S.A. when we do about $1 billion of trade a day. With Turkey our trade over two years was $1 billion. If we can provoke the U.S. in these conditions, what is the big deal about a so-called provocation with Turkey? Of course we know this whole thing is hot air.
When France passed a resolution two or three years ago, the Turkish ambassador was recalled from Paris to Ankara and six months later he went back. It said it was going to cancel the contract. No contract was cancelled. Therefore the argument is totally false.
My colleague from Thunder Bay mentioned that SNC-Lavalin and the Canadian government are involved in a contract with the Turkish government to provide some 300 rail cars. I have been there long enough, especially on this issue for 25 to 30 years. Three years ago there were discussions that Turkey was going to buy a Candu reactor from us.
Every time there is a motion in the House that this issue is close to a settlement or a final resolution, Turkey comes up with a so-called memorandum of understanding. If anyone believes that Turkey is going to buy these rail cars from Bombardier, good luck. They are really naive to believe that Turkey is going to pay for this. It has no money to pay for its own daily expenses so how could it afford to pay so much money for this kind of fantastic service? Bombardier should know better. That company is being used to provoke the Canadian government to take a stand against the Armenian question.
It was mentioned earlier that we owe it to ourselves to know and recognize the history of this issue. This is not to do with the Turkish government. At the end of the day the relations between the two countries, Turkey and Armenia, will improve because this issue is out of the way.
I have a list of the countries that have recognized the genocide. The most recent one is the Swiss government on December 16, 2003. Others are the Canadian Senate on June 13, 2002; the European parliament assembly on April 24, 2001; the Italian chamber of deputies; the Lebanese parliament; the French national assembly; the Belgian senate; the U.S. House of Representatives; the Argentine senate; and the European parliament. There was a French law in January 20, 2001. Again there is the European parliament; the French national assembly; the Swedish parliament; the council of the European parliament; the Lebanese parliament; the Hellenic parliament; the Russian Duma; the European parliament; the Cyprus parliament; and Uruguay. There was a joint declaration of France, Great Britain and Russia on May 23, 1915 to condemn what happened to the Armenians.
My colleague from Calgary also read a few pages of a book.
I have in my possession a newspaper articles from the Evening Telegram , the Globe and Mail , the London Times and the New York Times . I also have in my possession all the resolutions I read earlier, about 40 or 50 pages, that passed through the parliaments of Canada, the United States and the European parliament. I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to leave these documents with the clerk for further study.
I remember debating this issue way back. I remember a few years ago there was the Créditiste Party some 30 or 40 years ago. They raised this issue--