Mr. Speaker, no one is against virtue. No one will be surprised to learn that the Bloc Québécois supports the motion that is before us.
I was a bit surprised myself, though. I wondered where my Conservative colleague was going with his listing of all the people in whose memory the flag can be lowered to half-staff and the House can observe moments of silence.
I understand now why we do not have unanimous consent to expedite the adoption of this motion. He would like the member to refer the proposal to the committee. I will not object, because I also understand that the government wants to get this right. Like the Bloc Québécois, I cannot be against the motion as written.
The motion covers a lot of ground, and it is important. It is essential that we recognize the ultimate sacrifice made by people who die in the performance of their duty. One way of doing this would be to lower the flag to half-staff; the other would be to observe a moment of silence.
In the House of Commons, there is a fairly common practice that we follow when a national tragedy occurs where there is loss of life. The Speaker of the House asks the House to rise and observe a moment of silence, as we did this week.
The proposal before us, however, refers specifically to the Canadian Forces and Canadian personnel on mission overseas. This is important, because it is not just soldiers who could make the ultimate sacrifice. The current mission in Afghanistan has led to the death of a Canadian diplomat, as you know.
In other words, it is not just soldiers and members of the Canadian Forces who could lose their lives in a theatre of operations. There are also all the people who work for the government in other departments such as CIDA or Foreign Affairs.
The intention is therefore very good. We have the means to express that recognition. We have the tools. Two simple but effective ways of showing that recognition are proposed.
It is important, as a matter of principle, to recognize that someone in Afghanistan or elsewhere lost his or her life in the service of the nation. I am not necessarily talking about Quebec or Canada, because we know now that there are two nations.
These people are serving their nation. We are asking them to go into a dangerous theatre of operations; they have no choice. If they lose their lives, it is important that we honour them, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the families of the fallen.
I refer, for example, to the great world wars, World War I and World War II. At the time, perhaps, we were unable to commemorate the dead because people died by the thousands. Families lost their loved ones and do not even know what happened to them.
In today's theatres of operation, it does not take long to identify the person in question. It is important, not for the sake of the individual but for the sake of the family, to commemorate that person.
Conducting ceremonies—lowering the flag and observing a moment of silence in the House—allows the family to attend and to take some comfort in the commemoration. It is very painful for a family to have one of its children die in the line of duty.
It is important to show our gratitude, not so much for the fallen individual's sake, but more particularly so that the family can grieve and know that the person did not die in vain. The family will have proof that the son or daughter, brother or sister who was lost has been commemorated here and that their ultimate sacrifice has been acknowledged.
The Bloc Québécois does not want to go into the details of the types of missions. You will not be surprised to know that, for the Bloc Québécois, peace missions are much more important than stabilization missions, such as the current campaign in Afghanistan. People say that peace missions are on the decline. That may be true. Nevertheless, Canada's foreign policy was built, 50 years ago, on peace missions.
I do not need to remind the House that Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for the creation of UN peacekeeping forces. Since the Conservatives arrived in power, it has been rather sad to see peacekeeping missions clearly declining, not because the UN does not have them any more but because this government made a political choice to participate less and less in peacekeeping missions and more and more in peace stabilization missions, which are much more dangerous.
I do not want to say very much about this kind of mission. I would rather say that we in the Bloc Québécois understand very well that, regardless of the missions in which our soldiers are involved, they do not have any other choice than to go. We may be heard criticizing certain missions, but we never criticize our soldiers who carry them out. It is the civilian authorities, in this case the House of Commons, who decide what our soldiers will do. As part of these civilian authorities, we have our word to say about the kind of missions we want and how they should be carried out.
We often ask questions on this subject, even today and yesterday, for example about prisoners. We have a duty as parliamentarians to speak up about these things.
However, we never blame our soldiers for participating in this kind of mission because we know that they do not really have a choice. When they get their orders, they move out and head for the theatre of operations with all the courage required—not just the personal courage to fight valiantly or valiantly put their life in danger but also to leave their family knowing that the family members will be always be very worried and afraid every minute of getting a telephone call telling them that their daughter or son was killed in combat.
We know that. That is why it is important for us to say what we think about this kind of mission. We would not go so far as to say that the flag on Parliament should be put at half-mast if it is for a peacekeeping mission but should not be if it is for a stabilization mission because the latter kind of mission is more aggressive. No, I think I have made myself understood: we will never call the participation of our soldiers into question. What we call into question is the mission itself, and as legislators we are perfectly entitled to do so.
We are looking at what has been brought before us, as it has been presented. I told you that we are supporting it, because we are not talking just about the military, we can also talk about the personnel of federal agencies who are in the theatre of operations and are also risking their lives. If you have been in Bosnia or Kandahar or northern Afghanistan as I have, I have visited those places, you can see that the situation is truly dangerous and that our troops have to be tremendously brave to operate in that kind of theatre. If some of those troops are so unfortunate as to lose their lives, it is entirely reasonable for a Parliament like ours to honour them. The way to honour them is entirely proper.
As I said when I began my speech, I listened carefully to the speech by my Conservative colleague about the importance of not ignoring or forgetting anyone. We were prepared to pass a unanimous motion directly, but I believe that the Conservatives are not entirely prepared to do that.
I am not opposed to referring the matter to committee, but I did not hear to what committee it was to be referred. Is it the Standing Committee on National Defence or the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs? We shall see. As national defence critic and a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence, I can say that we are certainly prepared to look at the motion. However, we would have been prepared to pass the motion today. In my opinion, the sponsor of the motion was well intentioned, and that is why we have decided to support this motion. Whether it goes to committee or it is passed here unanimously, the Bloc Québécois supports the motion that our colleague has made today in this House.