Mr. Chair, in the context of this debate, I would like us to reflect on the past, the present, and then into the future. Obviously, it is important to reflect on the past because, as many people have commented, if we do not understand the past, then we will not understand how we got to where we are today.
It is important that we look at this debate in the context of the present, so that when things take place, for instance, the death of our brave soldiers, we can understand the context of that and it helps to determine the question of whether we should continue or not.
Then of course we have to consider the future to really get a grasp on whether what we are doing truly is going to be beneficial not just for Canada but in fact for the world. It is in those contexts that I am going to approach this debate.
We hear a lot today and we talk about the fact that Canada has a great reputation as a peacekeeper nation, but we forget that even before that we forged our history by being a peacemaker. We were involved in making the peace. Canadians were engaged in the first world war for three years before the Americans entered that conflict. In the second world war, we were there almost two years before the Americans arrived. We were in the Korean war with a very clear presence as a peacemaker.
In the first world war, our population was something like eight million, yet we enlisted almost a million troops. Just do the math on that for a minute. Of eight million people, we can figure that half were women, and in those days there were no women in combat roles, so we are down to four million men to choose from, from infants to the aged. Of that population of four million almost a million volunteered to go. Those were huge numbers.
When we look at that and our involvement in the second world war and Korea, those are some of the biggest reasons that literally we are here today in a democratic environment, and that much of Europe, western Europe certainly, is in a democratic environment, as is Great Britain and other countries.
If we had not taken part and if other countries had not taken part in those engagements, it could seriously be argued that we would not be here today in the present democratic environment which we enjoy. It is important to remember that. If we forget that we are in trouble.
I say this not for partisan reasons, but I reflect on a former Prime Minister being honest enough to say, reflecting on D-Day, that we had landed troops on the beaches of Norway. We had a former minister of defence, before the present Leader of the Opposition was minister of defence, who was honest enough to admit he had never heard of Dieppe and that he did not know the difference between Vimy Ridge, where Canada's future was largely forged, and Vichy. It is very important that we remember from whence we came, so that we know where we are going.
Canada was able to be a force at the United Nations under Lester Pearson, a great Liberal I might add, and have a huge influence because we had been so significantly involved in peacemaking in those important years. There is a Liberal heritage to that of which we can be proud.
We are presently in Afghanistan on a mission there for these very same reasons. It was in 1999 that the United Nations listed the Taliban as a terrorist entity. In 2001, people who had been trained in Afghanistan under that same world view attacked our neighbours to the south and killed Canadians in the process. They killed Canadians in those attacks. It is very important that we recognize that, and that we recognize that Afghanistan has been and still is a major exporter of terrorism. It had been allowed to exist freely, training people in the vicious and devious acts of terrorism which they exported all over the world.
They are also the major exporter of heroin, which causes disruption in a different way, death and destruction I might add, even upon our young people here in Canada. The Taliban regime is so vicious and oppressive that women live constantly in fear. Men live in fear of regime.
When the people of Afghanistan called for help, quite rightly Canadians responded. Canadian history is that we have certain limits to what we will witness before we take action. Canadians are not seen as being maybe as outward and aggressive as others are, but there are limits. We do not like bullies. When we see people in other countries being bullied to such an extent, our history is that eventually we step up to the plate to protect them. That is what we did in previous engagements. That is what we did and are doing in this engagement.
We respect the right of sovereign nations to conduct their own activities within their borders. That goes back to 1648 and the Treaty of Westphalia. We respect that sovereign right, but there is a limit. Canadians have been the ones to stand up when we feel those human limits have been broached. We are there and we must continue to be there.
I reflect on the second world war. My father, as a young university student, had a limit to which he could continue classes and yet at the same time watch what was going on in Europe under the Nazi regime. Though there were children at home and he was already well into his thirties, my mother's father had certain limits at which he could watch and see oncoming destruction in Hong Kong. He went with the people we now call the Hong Kong veterans and paid a severe price of spending four years in a prisoner of war camp.
Canadians have limits. We eventually stand up for those who are being bullied almost beyond human belief. Private Robert Costall had limits. He was a young, married man with a 14 month old child. He had enlisted in our armed forces and was proud to do so, hoping that the time would not come but knowing it may come where the limits would be broached and where he would join others and stand in the defence of human beings for their most important human rights.
It is not a time to back off and appease one of the most vicious terrorist elements the world has ever known. As a matter of fact, it was Winston Churchill who said that those who believed in appeasing were like those who fed the crocodile hoping they would be the last one to be eaten. Canadians, historically, have never taken that particular approach.
Why would so many Canadians be ambivalent about the present engagement in which we now find ourselves? One is that the reasons for this engagement I believe do not get fairly broadcast. I am talking literally about the broadcasters.
We are not asking, nor would we expect, those who do the broadcasting of news in our country to sway one way or another. However, it would be nice if Canadians got a fair picture of what we are doing in Afghanistan, such as the results that have already taken place, an economy that is beginning to find itself again, the fact that young women are going back to school and being educated, the fact that the people of Afghanistan are voting like they never have before, voting in bigger numbers than we vote here in Canada. We must be in Afghanistan.
I was speaking with General Hillier today. Our soldiers are not only proud of the fact they are there, but they understand why they are there. They feel and understand the meaning of that. They sense the history and the future of that. Now is not the time to desert them. We have read in the papers how Taliban forces and their supporters literally are watching this debate. They are watching what Canadians are seeing and feeling about this. They have a sense that if they continue to mount their attack against our brave soldiers, then maybe we will lose our nerve.
As I conclude my remarks, I think of words of the poet John McRae. Now is not the time to back off from facing the foe. Now is not the time to stand back. Now is the time to pass the torch. In that poem and in the words of many Canadians and many soldiers who have paid the price, “Don't fail now, take up the torch against the foe so that we who have paid the price can sleep”.
We want Canadians to sleep, not just tonight but in the generations to come. We need to be able to stand up for what we are doing in Afghanistan, to be there, to support our troops and know that it is the right thing to do even as we have in the past.