Mr. Chair, in reflection on these good questions that have been raised by my colleague opposite, there are some cards, I believe, to be played here that maybe, as an international diplomatic community, we have not fully deployed.
I do believe that a chapter 7 possibility is there. There may come a time when we have to give that consideration. I am as disturbed and as pessimistic as he is about the past history of the Khartoum regime. Winston Churchill said, “We learn from history that we learn nothing from history”. I like most of Churchill's proclamations, I would like them to stand, but I would like to see this one disproved.
Who would the regime listen to, really? Would it listen to Canada? We have two RCMP officers over there. We have sent resources. The regime has not really listened to us though. Who might it listen to? It might listen to China. China is very heavily invested in Sudan, in Khartoum. I might suggest that we could be appeal to the diplomatic sense of China. I was able to share with President Hu Jintao, when he was here on his visit last year, that after 1945 China was made a member of the Security Council because other countries had a vision that China could be a stabilizing force in their part of the world.
I think we should be appealing to China's sense of destiny, if we want to call it that, to be a stabilizing force and put diplomatic pressure on the Khartoum regime. That is one of the number of diplomatic cards that could be played. I do not know if it has been fully deployed but it should be. After those type of things, we would have to stay open to the consideration of a possible chapter 7.