Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to speak tonight about Canada's engagement with UNRWA and generally with the Palestinian territories.
In response to an earlier question I asked, the Minister of International Development spoke of the time she spent in the West Bank visiting UNRWA facilities, which I have also done. Earlier this year, as part of a trip with the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, I also had the opportunity to visit the West Bank and an UNRWA school and to speak with students there. It left me with some striking impressions.
I believe deeply that Canada must continue to support a two-state solution, recognizing that both Israelis and Palestinians have a legitimate historical connection to the territory covered by both Israel and the Palestinian territories, recognizing as well that what is required is an appreciation and understanding of each other's histories and each other's connections, and constructive dialogue that recognizes the legitimacy of each other's situation and the challenges presented by this conflict.
At the UNRWA school I saw many of the challengers that others have reported, including that the students were not being given any opportunity to interact with their Israeli neighbours. When we spoke to students, they spoke of not even having a desire to have those interactions, as a result of the situation they were in. The teachers in the room nodded along with that.
UNRWA is well known and well documented to be an organization that is far too tolerant of intolerance and accepting of curricular materials that do not recognize the essential connection between both peoples. In this particular case, the materials do not recognize the connection between the Jewish people and that territory and the need for that kind of understanding and appreciation of both positions.
Therefore, the question for Canada is that when we are sending money to support development of state Palestinian education, are we becoming subject to that soft bigotry of low expectations that says that even though there is intolerance in the curriculum, that is good enough? Or, are we insisting that when Canadian tax dollars are spent, those be reflective of Canadian values, so that we set the highest possible standards and look for an alternative to the current situation that we see with an organization like UNRWA, where dollars are not being spent in a way that reflects our values?
What was striking when I posed this question to the minister was that we had previously heard, on the one hand, that she had allegedly raised issues about the problematic material, but on the other hand that she had said that spending that money was totally fine. In other words, they are trying to say on the one hand that there are not problems, but on the other hand the minister is speaking about and raising problems that exist within UNRWA. It seems to me that we cannot have it both ways. Either there are not problems, and therefore it is acceptable to be spending this money, or there are problems. If the minister is raising the problems, then why is this money being spent?
Our Parliament should be deeply concerned about the welfare of the Palestinian people. That is why we should not be giving money to UNRWA, but instead should be looking to deliver support in ways that set the highest standard of pluralism, neutrality, and encouraging peace and peaceful coexistence. That is our position.
Will the government come on side with that, stop funding UNRWA, and instead look for more effective ways that are more reflective of Canadian values to deliver support to the Palestinian people?