Mr. Chair, I stand tonight to speak about the horrendous situation in the Darfur region of Sudan. This is a speech I sincerely wish was not necessary but we can and must do something to stop the atrocities.
Men, women and children are being murdered, their villages plundered and burned. Hundreds of thousands have been driven into the desert to starve to death or die from disease. The latest estimates place the death toll at 200,000 and those driven from their homes to be over 2,000,000. Hundreds of thousands of Darfurians are now forced to live in disease ridden refugee camps. A lack of funds has caused the UN to cut food rations to 3,000,000 Sudanese in half.
The UN concern about the situation in Darfur was strongly expressed on April 7 when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke before the commission on UN human rights on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. He said:
--the international community would have to take action if full access was not given to human rights and humanitarian workers. He noted that reports of the large-scale human rights abuses in Darfur: leave me with a deep sense of foreboding. Whatever terms it uses to describe the situation, the international community cannot stand idle.
Last Tuesday, I and many of my colleagues from the House, took part in the remembrance and wreath laying ceremony right here in front of Centre Block. We were remembering those souls who were lost during one of this world's darkest moments, the Holocaust. We cannot justify remembering one instance of man's inhumanity to man while turning a blind eye to another.
The entire international community is looking for ways to make a meaningful intervention in this issue. I am very happy to have had the chance to speak to this important issue tonight during this take note debate and we all look forward to the best possible way to find a solution to the horrible killings and the horrible situation that currently exists in Darfur.
Canada continues to remain very active in Sudan and plays an internationally recognized role in support of the African Union mission in Sudan and is among the mission's top three international donors. Canada has welcomed the AU's recent decision to support a transition to UN forces in Darfur. Perhaps if those UN forces are in Darfur we will have a situation that is better controlled than we have today.
It is my hope that we can make a stand as a country and as a free nation to help the people of Darfur, to recognize that their needs are there, that we are there for them and that Canada will continue to play the role that it has played for so many years and be there for any international crisis. It is more difficult for us to do that with the limited restrictions we have on our manpower and on our ability to supply equipment but I can guarantee that the Conservative government will stand behind the military of our country to build us back up to the international reputation that we once honoured.
I am hoping also that Darfur's situation will be coming under control shortly by the means that have been mentioned tonight by my colleagues. It is important that Canada play a role in pressuring other nations to do their part to make the situation in Darfur a better situation. We cannot stand by idly while millions of people are killed. We must stand up and I believe that our government will do so.