Madam Speaker, in fact, I was rising to ask my colleague if he believes that we should immediately increase our humanitarian aid given the horrors he described. However, I will have the opportunity to speak a bit more about this in my short speech.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Hamilton Centre.
It is true that the situation of the Rohingya in Myanmar and those who have fled to Bangladesh is truly horrible. It is a situation that should concern all of us. We absolutely must discuss it. It is for that reason that I am truly pleased to have the opportunity provided to all of us this evening to speak to this issue. I know that several of my colleagues have taken this situation to heart and would also like to speak.
Since August, over 430,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar. People often forget to mention that this is on top of the 300,000 others who had already left. Out of a population of a little over one million people, that is an absolutely staggering proportion. It is as though 15 million Canadians fled somewhere else. They are fleeing situations of extreme violence. We have all seen the images on televison of villages burning and people setting fire to the roofs. Houses are sometimes burned with entire families still inside. People are fleeing this violence, knowing that it will be very difficult for them to ever return, since their villages have been completely destroyed. We have seen executions. We have seen so many things that are unfortunately all too common in these kinds of situations. Rape is used as a weapon of war. There have been reports of decapitations, which brings back terrible memories.
As my colleague mentioned a little earlier, there have been very credible reports from various sources stating that Myanmar's military forces are laying anti-personnel mines along the Bangladeshi border. As we know, Myanmar is not a party to the Ottawa treaty to ban landmines, although Bangladesh is. Initially, Myanmar refused to remove landmines within its borders or work towards that. Now, not only is it not removing them, it is laying new ones. We are familiar with the long-term damage this can cause.
We could go on at length describing the atrocities happening there, but I think what sums it up best is the fact that more and more people are talking about the ethnic cleansing occurring in Myanmar right now. It sends shivers up the spine. It is important to note that there are many children among those fleeing right now. These people are arriving in Bangladesh exhausted, starving, often sick, and almost always traumatized.
Poor Bangladesh does not have the means to take them in and has problems of its own. Bangladesh itself has a large population, and on top of that, this is typhoon season. The serious humanitarian situation triggered by the Myanmar government's actions combined with environmental and economic issues in that part of the world is a recipe for disaster. It is absolutely terrible. That is why talk is not enough; we need action.
Earlier, the minister talked about showing support, which is all well and good, but endless expressions of support are not enough. We have to take meaningful action, and I have some suggestions for the government in that regard.
As other members mentioned, this situation calls for diplomatic pressure. We have to work with our partners to achieve a number of objectives. The violence must stop. Landmines must no longer be deployed, and those that have been must be removed. The Myanmar government must let humanitarian groups and investigative teams in. We can talk all we want about crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing—some people have even spoken of genocide this evening—but to find out what really happened, evidence must be collected on the ground. We must pressure the authorities to let investigative teams in, and we must provide technical support to those teams.
We must also end immunity for the violence committed there. I was talking about investigating the crimes and horrors committed there, offering our expertise, and ensuring access to teams who conduct fact-finding missions, but we can also use things like satellite imagery to immediately start monitoring, as much as possible, what is happening on the ground. According to Amnesty International, there were still villages burning on September 22. That needs to be investigated.
We have to think about sanctions imposed with our partners against the military authorities of Myanmar. They might be modelled after the Magnitsky Act or take the form of a travel ban. There is also a need for humanitarian aid, not next week or two weeks from now, but immediately. Refugee camps are stretched to the limit. There are camps for displaced persons within Myanmar, but we can act and help the people in the camps in Bangladesh. UN authorities talk a lot about “the most urgent emergency in the world”. People are crammed together, some already sick and exhausted. There could be an outbreak of disease. We must act now.
We also have to think about the long term. As I was saying, there are many children among those fleeing the violence. We have to think about their education and their mental state, because some of them are traumatized. We have to consider the possibility that there will be no immediate return to Myanmar in the coming weeks, as the villages have been destroyed.
The United Nations will be quick to increase its requests. It has already asked for $77 million, but this is not the type of emergency where a one-time donation will do because this is an ongoing crisis. We must continue to donate, and with the growing number of refugees, we have to donate even more.
Lastly, we will have to consider the possibility of receiving Rohingya refugees. Earlier the parliamentary secretary was talking about building democracy and good governance. True, that is important for preventing similar situations from happening again in the future. To get there, however, funds need to be committed to international aid, and it saddens me that the Liberal government has reduced Canada's contribution to international development.