Mr. Chair, first, our understanding is Mr. Aristide voluntarily resigned. Part of his decision making would have been from the collapse of his own security which was not a situation to which Canada contributed. It is not a situation that we were directly involved in. It is my understanding that in fact his own security forces had weakened to the extent that he was willing to resign voluntarily and that it was certainly not a coup d'état engineered by the U.S. or anyone else.
In terms of the 2000 election results, as the hon. member knows, the results may have been overwhelming, but there were significant questions around the legitimacy of the elections from that time. Part of the issue we have been facing ever since has been based on some of the questions around those elections.
I thought it was curious that the hon. member referred to France as acting to mollify the Americans. It would be one of the first times that France has been in a hurry to mollify the Americans in terms of foreign policy. I would be greatly surprised if in fact France acted in a way in Haiti, a country with which we share an interest as another member of the Francophonie, to mollify the Americans. That would not make a lot of sense based on what I understand to be the traditional foreign policy of France.
The real focus here is not in the short term necessarily focusing on how we arrived in the last several days and weeks in our current situation, but in focusing on the democratization, stabilization and reconstruction of Haiti. The people of Haiti deserve that. If we are to have a foreign policy as a country based on Canadian values, those values being democracy, rule of law and equality, it is in our interests to be working toward that.
There is a lot of work that has to be done. By working with the OAS and CARICOM and others multilaterally, we can achieve a great deal. The real focus in the coming days, weeks, months and in fact years needs to be on that very positive, forward thinking focused effort to provide a more stable, peaceful and democratic Haiti.