Mr. Speaker, this is the first time my hon. colleague has looked forward to hearing what I might have to say on these matters.
The question is about root causes. The hon. member mentioned a couple of times that to look for and search out root causes is essentially a waste of time. I am not surprised. We have a huge divergence of philosophy in our approach to global affairs.
Knowing what the root causes are is important. God forbid that we should ask a protagonist what the root causes of the conflict are. The other approach is to shoot first and ask questions later. Part of that approach is to climb into one's hidey–hole and lecture all the bad guys, and there is no end of bad guys. Iran is the world's foremost exporter of state terrorism. The Russians are being very aggressive, destabilizing the eastern side of Europe, all of the Baltic countries, Ukraine, et cetera. Jihadists are in multiple countries. President Assad has just gone to new levels of brutality. Frankly, sitting in some hidey-hole and lecturing all these bad guys about all the bad things they are doing is not particularly useful.
Our approach has been to try to figure out what the causes are. The minister, in his exploration of whether we will participate in peace operations, and I emphasize that no decision has been made, has been to Africa twice. He has visited seven countries. He has visited with NGOs, government officials, and opposition officials. He has taken two of Canada's most knowledgeable people on conflict resolution with him on one of his trips, namely Justice Arbour and General Dallaire. These people are specialists in conflict and conflict reduction.
I know that it is naive to think that if we have some understanding of the root causes, we might actually be able to contribute to the resolution of some of these conflicts. It may be that some of the root causes involve climate change, where climate change forces the migration of people. When people migrate, conflict occurs. It may be some perverted interpretation of some of the world's great religions. It may be a conflict that is as old as time itself. It may be an ancient tribal feud. The Middle East has been in conflict for 4,000 years. It is an ethnic conflict. It is a religious conflict. It is a tribal conflict. It is a conflict over resources.
Maybe if we understand some of these root causes, we will not have to shoot quite so often.
I would note that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has gone. The Minister of International Development has gone. The approach is a whole-of-government approach. We just cannot continue to shoot at people and expect the conflicts to be resolved. If we understand the root of conflicts, maybe we could achieve an approach that would contribute to peace operations.