Bill Graham

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if the Security Council passes the resolution, then it will be the Security Council that will have decided. So, we will support the Security Council. However, the member does not know what the outcome of that debate will be. Let us wait to see what the Security Council decides. The Government of Canada will support the Security Council after it makes its decision.

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as the member is fully aware, this is a draft resolution that was given to the media. We have not yet received the official version.

This resolution will be debated at the Security Council. Once the Security Council makes a decision, because it is up to the council to decide, we have said that the Government of Canada will support the Security Council's decision on the conditions involved in sending inspectors into Iraq.

[Foreign Affairs, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will recall that when this was last debated in the House the parliamentary secretary made a statement to the House which clearly indicated that the government shares with the people of Armenia the sorrow as a result of the terrible tragedy and loss of life in those awful circumstances during the course of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

I met recently with the Speaker of the Armenian legislature, who was here, and with various Armenian members of their legislature. We continue to examine this question. The Armenian people know that the government sympathizes with their cause and sympathizes with the suffering they had, and we will continue in that line.

[Foreign Affairs, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite, who is very familiar with international law, will know that he is wrong in qualifying the right to consular access in these cases.

This young man in an unfortunate situation was arrested in the course of having been accused of killing an American serviceman in the course of a conflict. There is no consular access in the course of conflicts or we would have had consular access to all of our prisoners during the second world war.

We have access. We have requested to the United States to have access and it has assured us that we will have access. The Red Cross has assured us that the young man's health is in good condition. We continue to press the United States to ensure that his rights will be protected, but I want to assure the House--

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question and the work that his committee does, in the tradition of Canadians, to work through diplomatic channels to try to find peaceful solutions to conflicts in the world.

What we have done is that I have worked closely with the Prime Minister, who has contacted world leaders to ensure that we continue to work through diplomatic channels to find a peaceful solution to this potential conflict.

When I was in New York I met with foreign ministers, I met with the Arab league and I met with the G-8. In all cases we stayed with and worked with our game plan, which is to keep this within the world community way of solving this problem, which is in the tradition of the Canadian way--

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that is no more the position of this party than it is an accurate description of what the member said in the House. The member said in the House that we may not associate ourselves with attacks that are perceived as aggressive attacks.

We have spent our time and the member and the Leader of the Opposition took this position as well. We have created a world order which resists aggression. This party and this country believe that we must work through the United Nations, as the Prime Minister has said, to have a world order which restricts aggression.

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity of participating all last night in an important debate in the House. It was clear that all members sought to try and wrestle with this extraordinarily important issue.

Analogies that were made on this side of the House were made to say that if we choose unilateralism and if we choose to attack in circumstances which could be perceived as aggression, we would defy the memory of those who resisted aggression in the past. That is a valid position. It is consistent with world international law. It is consistent--

[Iraq, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think it is important to recall for members of the House that affection passing between them must pass through you as the Speaker.

[Iraq, October 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the right hon. member for his comment about the readiness for us to have an exchange. I hope that the presence of all of us here tonight in the House indicates that these debates are take note debates precisely because we have an honest desire to exchange with one another our best experiences.

To the right hon. member I say that while we may not always agree on policy, we do respect his experience and respect what he brings to the House in terms of that experience. We respect the positions of all members and the experiences they bring to the House.

I would be particularly interested if the right hon. member could expand somewhat on his comments about the need to assure an international order governed by international law going back to his experience. This for many of us is the most troubling dimension of what we are doing here. It seems to me that this is what we are troubled by.

I listened attentively to the Leader of the Opposition and he was very careful to frame it in saying that we do not wish to rush off and create disequilibrium in the world order. However there is a trade off here. If we act precipitously or if we act without the United Nations, we risk destabilizing the world order and creating a situation where others will do the same. It has been indicated to me for example that already Russia is putting pressure on Georgia using terminology very similar to what the United States is using in respect of Iraq. Others may well start to use the same language in similar circumstances justifying the same way.

Any words from the right hon. member about what we can do to assure a guarantee of the world order as we go ahead will be helpful for all of us.

[Iraq, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, under the circumstances, I do not believe that an analogy with Israel's behaviour is useful in helping us decide what we should do to bring peace to the region.

Saddam Hussein's past behaviour toward his own people and toward his neighbours cannot be compared to the conduct of a democratic society, a society that respects its people, like Israel. Canada has always insisted that Israel comply with the United Nations' resolutions, and we continue to do so. However, we do not believe that Israel is in the same flagrant violation as Iraq is at the time being. Nor does the situation represent a threat to global security, as is the case with Iraq currently.