moved:
That, in the opinion of the House, in order to show respect and to honour Canadian Forces and other Canadian government personnel who are killed while serving in overseas peacekeeping, peacemaking or humanitarian missions, the government should lower the flag on the Peace Tower to half-staff for the day following their demise as a remembrance of their important service to Canada and Canadians and that a moment of silence to be observed in the House, if the House is sitting on that same day.
Mr. Speaker, as I rise to start off the debate on this motion, I would like to make a couple of important points.
Much debate goes on in the House relating to Canadian missions abroad, the latest one being the mission in Afghanistan. While there are many points of view in the debate, be they on defence, development, diplomacy, what the length of stay of our forces should be, what the troop commitment should be, they are all legitimate. However, it is important that we, as members of the House, all recognize that there is absolutely no debate about all members of Parliament supporting our men and women in uniform and other officials who serve our country abroad.
That is very important, because there has been commentary about the ideas we are fighting for, the way we treat captured prisoners and we want to ensure that we embody them in the conduct of the mission. I want to make sure that going forward there will never be a question from anybody in any party about their commitment to the men and women who are serving overseas.
Just yesterday we observed a moment of silence in the chamber with respect to the tragedy that happened in New Brunswick to students of Bathurst High School and a teacher from Terry Fox Elementary School. Seven people lost their lives. To commemorate that event, the members of the House stood for a moment of silence.
Over my years in Parliament there have been moments of silence observed pertaining to any number of tragedies that have happened in Canada or around the world. It seems to me that when we deal with the untimely death of one of our people serving abroad, there should be no question that in the House we would have a moment of silence.
We have also had occasion, following the demise of one of our soldiers overseas, to lower the flag on the Peace Tower. Symbolically we do that because the decision to send people abroad on missions is made in this place. In my community or any community across Canada, on the death of a peace officer, the flag flies at half-mast at the city hall in that person's community.
In the case of RCMP officers who had been killed, we honoured them in the House. We commemorated the tragedy of their deaths. It seems to me that when we commemorate the deaths of soldiers or officials who are killed while serving their country, that would be a proper thing to do.
Let me refer to one of the motions moved in the house on the issue of lowering the flags to half-mast. In Hansard on Thursday, October 7, 2004, the member for Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, a member of the Conservative Party, said:
Mr. Speaker, when I was walking to the office this morning I was actually saddened and disappointed to notice that the federal government has not recognized appropriately the tragic loss of Lieutenant Chris Saunders yesterday on the HMCS Chicoutimi.
Therefore, I am rising today to ask unanimous consent of the House for the following motion. I move:
That this House demand the Prime Minister instruct all federal government buildings to immediately lower all Canadian flags to half-mast to recognize the tragic death of Lieutenant Chris Saunders yesterday on the HMCS Chicoutimi.
That motion was unanimously adopted.
The flags have been lowered on previous occasions. As a matter of fact, for the most part, the policy of the previous government was that if a Canadian soldier died overseas, the flags would be lowered. That policy seems to have gone by the wayside.
There have been various controversies around the way we have dealt with soldiers who have died serving our country overseas. One of the controversies was about how we would deal with the repatriation of the body. Unfortunately, the government took the position that the media would not be allowed at those events.
We are talking about something that is very simple and very basic. We should be commemorating the passing of the soldiers who have been killed overseas while serving this country, soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. We should be commemorating their passing in this House and also lowering the flag on top of the Peace Tower.
We could deal with this issue expeditiously. All we have to do is let the debate collapse today. We have had representation made to this effect by all parties in this House. It would show our soldiers that we are in solidarity with what they are doing overseas. We could have the necessary debate in this chamber when we set the policy.
There is no greater sacrifice an individual could make than to serve his or her country abroad. When a tragedy does happen, when a death does occur, we as a Parliament and we as a nation should commemorate it.
This does not have to be a controversial motion. Most members of this House would agree to this motion. I urge members of the House to expedite the passing of this motion.
Four soldiers have died this month in Afghanistan and we have had no commemoration of their deaths either in the House or by lowering the flags. Let us show the men and women who are serving abroad that in spite of any differences we might have in this chamber about the policy relating to the mission, they have our wholehearted and unanimous support, just as they have the wholehearted and unanimous support of all Canadians.
I am going to cut my time short because I really would like to see this debate collapse so we could proceed to a vote as soon as possible on an action we could take to show our solidarity with our men and women serving overseas. We should expedite it and make it happen as quickly as possible. There should be absolutely no question that we are behind them 100%.