Mr. Speaker, it is quite interesting that the two departments, as was mentioned earlier, came together some time ago, approximately a decade. Quite a debate was going on in the international sphere of diplomacy at that time. We had just witnessed the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the cold war had come to a close.
An essay was written at that time entitled, “The End of History”. There truly was a sense of euphoria in diplomatic circles that perhaps we had reached a certain end of history in terms of wars and we would now concentrate on economic development and trade. That is perhaps some of the logic that precipitated this move of the two departments coming together. Perhaps the theory was premature. Perhaps it speaks to a world that we will achieve one day, but events over the past decade have made it clear that we need robust diplomacy.
During my speech, I referred to a number of very Canadian initiatives. The initiative of L20 is similar to the initiative of the G-20, a concept our Prime Minister came up with, when he was minister of finance, of bringing the finance ministers of 20 countries together, not just the largest economies in the world but also regional leaders and economies in the developing world.
Canada has taken this one step further and come up with the concept of L20. We have joined along with developing democracies, countries with developing civil societies. It talks to a very different approach from our neighbours or allies to the south. We have a very different approach in bringing democracy to the world than our American allies.
The process that is bringing democracy to Iraq has been quite interesting. A number of people have been rightly suspicious. In fact, some people call it the Haliburton method of bringing democracy to the world. We take a very different approach. We believe in multilateralism. We believe in engaging the world, our allies and also countries that we believe are on the path and need to be encouraged along the path of democracy and civil society. We just heard a petition that was brought forward from the Sunshine Coast where the petitioners said that Canada should not be part of a war machine that brings war to other parts of the world.
Coming back to the example of what has happened in Iraq and the suspicions as to why that has taken place, we do not want that sort of suspicion to ever come into play when Canada plays an international role in diplomacy. There should be a separation between commercial interests and our very important work in building democracy and civil society around the world.
Bill C-32 clearly separates the two departments so when we engage other countries in the world, through concepts like the L20, people will understand that Canadians believe in the values of democracy and in bringing civil society to the world, notwithstanding our trade interests.