Mr. Speaker, tomorrow will be the first time members will be able to vote on this important matter, although it is the fourth time a similar motion has been introduced in this House.
I was therefore surprised to find in my mail a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade addressed to MPs and encouraging us not to vote in favour of this private member's motion. I was, frankly, somewhat shocked and dismayed, particularly since this is one of the ministers of this government who claims to attach a great deal of importance to what members think and want. I was surprised for that reason.
Yet, after reading his letter, my second reaction was to be pleased he had sent it to us, and I will tell you why. In his third paragraph he says the following.
The established government policy was set out in a statement in this House in June 1999 in favour of reconciliation: “We remember the calamity afflicted on the Armenian people in 1915. This tragedy was committed with the intent to destroy a national group in which hundreds of thousands of Armenians were subject to atrocities which included massive deportations and massacres—”
Who has not read the definition of genocide in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide? All components of that definition are clearly recalled in the minister's statement. According to the definition, genocide is “an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” That is what we have just heard from the mouth of the minister, or rather from his pen.
I would like to repeat the motion, for which I congratulate my colleague for Laval Centre. What does it say? It reads:
That this House acknowledge the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemn this act as a crime against humanity.
There are some new elements, some recent events, that make it possible for us to be even more clearly in favour of this motion.
The first of these is the recent ruling by the appeals section of the International Tribunal in the Hague, relating to the defence of Mr. Krstic, who, hon. members will recall, felt that responsibility for the deaths of seven to eight thousand Muslims in July of 1995 was not sufficient reason to term this genocide. The appeal court clearly certified that this defence was invalid and recognized that this was genocide.
I believe we all understand the importance of this ruling, which the experts feel broadens the concept of genocide.
Another piece of news is quite interesting. The New York Times , a widely respected newspaper, has recently changed its guidelines for reporters and editorial writers. I do not have it in French, because it is the New York Times , so I will read it in English:
--“after careful study of scholarlydefinitions of 'genocide,' we have decided to accept the term inreferences to the Turks' mass destruction of Armenians in andaround 1915”...the expression'Armenian genocide' may be used freely and should not be qualifiedwith phrasing like 'what Armenians call,' etc”.
That is one more important element, and I can add that the Boston Globe did the same thing a year ago.
Now there are questions to be raised. Why not recognize that the 1999 declaration by the Minister of Foreign Affairs is equivalent to saying, “There was a genocide”? Why not recognize it? It has the same definition.
Why would this threaten relations between Turkey and Canada, and relations between Turkish-Canadian citizens and other Canadians? I can say—this is not the best argument—that the threat has been made everywhere but never executed, while many assemblies in many countries, which have been named repeatedly, have passed such a resolution.
How does this motion attack Turkey? The word “Turkey” is not spoken, in contrast to the motion that was proposed in the United States House of Representatives. The word “Turkey” is not seen here.
Can we not remember that Mustapha Kemal, who founded the Turkish republic in 1923—the genocide we are discussing took place in 1915—repeatedly, dozens of times, condemned the massacres? They were not hidden away in a closet. Many times, he called them heinous acts and called for the guilty parties to be punished.
The Republic of Turkey was not formed until 1923. Turks now and then could have said, “It was the Ottoman empire. It was a moment of crisis. We feel for the Armenians and acknowledge that they were victims of genocide”. Why do otherwise?
I want to add that, if the word “genocide” is not mentioned before 1948, it is because it was not used for this purpose. I even looked in my old Larousse dictionary, the first edition of which was published in 1932—interesting tidbit for a historian—and under “genocide” it states, “The word used by Holocaust deniers”.
In my opinion, there is no good reason to vote against the motion before the House tomorrow. I have already repeated the definition given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. All we will need to say is, “what is called the Armenian genocide”.
The Quebec National Assembly and many other legislatures across Canada, as well as the Senate, have passed this motion couched in the harshest of terms. However, is this not necessary recognition for the descendants of these men and women whose suffering was great and attested to at the time by numerous witnesses? There is plenty of evidence.
How could voting in favour of this motion delay the rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey? Recognizing the Shoah certainly did not prevent an extraordinary rapprochement between Europe and Germany.
The future cannot be built on a hidden past. The future, in this case, depends on the respectful admission of the facts, so considered by those who have studied this issue.
With regard to the reconciliation, the future needs to be considered once the past has been put to rest.