Mr. Speaker, it has now been five months since I first asked this question for the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Why Canada has yet to ratify the optional protocol on torture? Let us talk about torture and Canada's role in ending the horrendous practice across the globe.
Canada has always been a leader at the United Nations and around the world. Canada was a leader in bringing peacekeeping to the United Nations, a leader at Kyoto and a leader on many other fronts. However, now, we have simply abandoned our role in the world. We walk away from international treaties like Kyoto. We leave people of Darfur to their suffering. We ignore the plight of Africa as it is ravaged by AIDS. Truly this is an embarrassment of national proportions.
Canada can and should be working on a global scale to fight injustice and torture. Capital punishment, which in my view is a form of torture, continues unabated across the world. Gay youth are stoned to death in Iran. Prisoners are electrocuted only to be found innocent afterwards. The death penalty is simply unconscionable and represents one of the most backward forms of punishments. It eliminates any chance of redemption and cannot be reversed when applied in wrongful convictions. In many countries, it is used to blackmail prisoners into coerced confessions or to implicate other innocents. The psychological effects of such treatment are analogous to torture, and the death penalty must be eliminated from this earth.
We have partners we can work with on these issues, such as Senator Robert of Badinter of France, whose tireless work against the death penalty in that country is an inspiration. As a country that should be leading the world on human rights, it is not enough to eliminate such practices at home, but we must also work tirelessly around the world to see an end to these practices. We can and must do better.
Many of our European allies, from France to Portugal to Great Britain, have signed the optional protocol on torture and enough countries have ratified it to make it international law. Shocking is that Canada still has not.
On June 1 the government said that it was following the issue closely. I, therefore, ask the minister this. Why has he allowed Canada to be sidelined on this important issue when we should have been leading? Recent events have shown just how torture affects us here at home. Canadians expect action on this issue, so much so that they assume we are doing the right thing, without being aware that in the past year Canada has stalled on this issue.
I just do not get it. It makes no sense. Why are we not ratifying this treaty?
There is no doubt in my mind that the hon. minister, along with all members of the House, abhor torture. That is not the question. The question is, what are we going to do to stop it? After another five full months of inaction, are we going to sign and ratify the optional protocol on torture or not?
The time to act was five months ago, but failing that, now will have to suffice.