Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Scarborough—Rouge River shared the same experience I did in the Philippines, observing an election conducted in a climate of fear and intimidation in many places. I was on the island of Mindanao in the Muslim region. At the polling place where I was observing the vote, two people were killed.
The amazing thing to me is that it is not just a Canadian value, but Filipinos lined up to vote. Less than two hours after people had been murdered at the polling place, people came back to exercise their right to vote. They were so brave in asserting the importance of democracy that even in that climate of fear and intimidation, they wanted to vote.
We know that in the last election in Honduras, which took place at the end of November, five members of the opposition party's election workers were killed during the last weekend of the election. Can we really accept the validity of a government that only narrowly defeated the opposition when many of members of the opposition were killed during the election campaign?