Mr. Speaker, I wish to address this issue from the perspective of being the co-chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association. As such I have had the opportunity over the past few years of learning about Africa, and certainly the country we are talking about tonight and its situation, Egypt, and the role it plays in northern and eastern Africa and the role it played in supporting the pan-African Parliament, in supporting NEPAD, and so forth.
This essentially is what is going on in Egypt and other countries in Africa, whether it is Tunisia, Algeria or even Côte d'Ivoire. It is essentially about democracy, about the will of the people. What is driving some of these changes we are witnessing through the media reports is in part food costs, as we have seen in Algeria and Tunisia, and also the realization by millions of people that their standard of living is not what it could be, and the intolerable inequities they have been subject to, whether between African countries and European countries or African countries and North American countries, and also within countries because, within Egypt, we have heard tonight there are certainly different standards of living that people can afford. The majority of the people in that country are unfortunately living, as we have heard, on a couple of dollars a day.
We have seen this happening now, and as I say, it has been reported by the traditional media, by television, newsprint and radio, but has also been driven in great part by social media. That in turn has been driven by the will of the people to know and be informed, to know what is going on and to have an effect and an impact on their environment so their living conditions can be improved. And then again, I boil it down to what democracy is all about.
Our Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association had the occasion to visit Egypt, Cairo in particular, in March 2007. Even then we could almost sense an end of the regime, because the president, who is still president today, was ill at the time. There was a question of whether or not he would run again. They had just had elections the preceding November, when 88 members of the Muslim brotherhood had been elected. Some thought that number could have been greater and there was a lot of questioning about the method of elections. International observers were not allowed. As we know, in the elections just last fall, those 88 were reduced to a handful, and again there were a number of question asked about the way in which the elections were conducted. We are seeing a number of factors come into play, and all of this, of course, is being driven by other events in neighbouring countries.
I also want to relate a discussion we had at the time with a Mr. Hisham Kassem, who had been a participant in the Cairo Times for seven years, and founder of the first truly independent daily in Egypt. Our delegation had an hour of discussion with him, which we could not fully relate for fear of putting him in a bit of a bind. However, it was a truly eye-opening discussion in terms of the evolution of democracy in that country, how the regime was functioning, how they were allowing him essentially to be able to report independently, and that opened our eyes greatly to the situation. In that sense I am not very surprised that some of the events we are seeing are happening.
I want to take us a few days back, though, to events that happened elsewhere that I believe had an influence.
Naturally I am talking about the events in Tunisia. In just a few days, we saw the end of Ben Ali's regime, which had lasted for 27 years. The people, who are probably a little better off than the people of Egypt, wanted change. The people took charge and succeeded in ousting Ben Ali and are now making sure there is a new regime. Let us hope this will occur respectfully and peacefully and that it results in a regime that will satisfy the majority of the people.
Let us not forget the events in Algeria. There were riots there too because of the price of food. As a result, the government had to act quickly and reduce the price. We can see the sensitivity that exists throughout northern Africa.
I would also like to mention another country: Côte d'Ivoire. Our association has just returned from visiting the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), which includes Côte d'Ivoire, a country we did not visit. In November, elections were held in Côte d'Ivoire and Mr. Ouattara was declared the victor by all the observers: from the European Union Election Observation Mission, to the United Nations and the African Union of West Africa itself. Everyone agreed that Mr. Ouattara had indeed been elected and that Mr. Gbagbo had to leave his post. However, Mr. Gbagbo is hanging on to power. During our visit to Nigeria, Ghana and Togo, roughly 10 days ago, it was headline news even though other things were going on in Tunisia, as I was saying.
I am very proud of the fact that 13 of the 15 member countries of ECOWAS held a meeting and unanimously supported the need to respect the election results, whereby Mr. Ouattara is to be named president and will take control. They went so far as to say that, as a last resort, force would be used to ensure that the election results were respected. This is very important because there will be 17 elections in Africa this year. If democracy were to experience a serious setback in Côte d'Ivoire because Mr. Ouattara was not sworn in as president, democracy in other African countries would also suffer.
In light of all this, I believe that the situation in Africa is very interesting nonetheless. Democracy is beginning to take root there and looking to flourish. As parliamentarians, as Canadians, as members of the broader international family, we have a role to play. First, we will have to seriously consider accepting the results of free and fair elections. When free and fair elections are held, even if the results are not what we would like them to be, we must learn to accept the outcome because that is democracy. There have been other instances when we have hesitated to accept the results, or even when we have not accepted them, and that is putting us in a rather delicate situation at present.
We must also learn to support these countries by speaking out, by having an active presence, in peacekeeping or international development—and certainly in election assistance or election monitoring. Canada is an expert in this area. Elections Canada is an organization with a very good reputation, and is highly respected and highly regarded by other nations. If we are asked to help, I hope we will be ready to answer the call.
If we were to do so, if we were to take part in the shift to democracy in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire and any other country that wants to move in that direction, if their populations clearly, fairly and freely express their desire to do so, everyone would benefit. The large international family of free and democratic countries would be better off, and so would the human race overall.
That is the message I wanted to convey this evening. Like my hon. colleagues, I hope that everyone in our respective ridings who is of Egyptian origin can rest assured that their loved ones who are still in Egypt are safe and are being well treated. It goes without saying that we must do everything we can to help them.
I thank the Speaker for giving parliamentarians the opportunity to share their thoughts and wishes here this evening.