Bill Graham

[National Defence, November 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. Two weeks ago the permanent joint board of defence held its 208th meeting in Ottawa to discuss continental security.

Could the defence minister explain the nature of this important Canada-U.S. institution and brief the House as to what was accomplished at that meeting?

[Interparliamentary Delegations, October 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly held in Paris, France, July 6 to 9.

[International Actions Against Terrorism, October 15th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, I join my colleagues in saying this evening what a privilege it is to be participating in this debate and to have an opportunity, however late the hour in the House, to discuss with one another how we are to deal with the changed circumstances in the world in which we now live as a result of what happened in New York City on September 11.

I will introduce my comments with a few thoughts. The first is that I like other members of the House totally support the government's action in pursuing Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government that harbours him. If we did not take strong actions now, we would never be safe in the future in our country or anywhere else in the world.

I believe our actions are legal. I do not believe as some members of the House have suggested that what we are doing is illegal. Our actions conform to the wishes of the security council and of the United Nations itself. In acting as we are, we have world opinion with us and world legal sanction to do what we are doing.

As other members have said, our men and women in our armed service as they go out to defend the values of Canadians deserve our support, our congratulations and our gratitude for the work and the effort they will be making on our behalf.

The Canadian people support our actions. They are united as never before with our American partners on this continent. This weekend I happened to be walking in the country. As I walked down a small country road by a little river that was so Canadian in its nature and looked at the beautiful fall colours in the Ontario countryside, I saw a small bridge going over this river. At one end of the bridge was a Canadian flag and at the other end there was an American flag.

For me that bridge symbolized in many ways what the Canadian people are presently feeling in terms of their spiritual affinity to our colleagues and friends in the United States who have suffered as a result of what happened in New York City.

We in the House have to take the opportunity provided by this take note debate to reflect on what happened and to ask ourselves how we can ensure that our actions are designed so that it does not happen again.

Everyone has said that the world has changed since September 11. Yes, but then our response to terrorism surely must change as well or we will not be able to deal with this menace. Armed response is only a part, an essential and immediate part but only the beginning of what we must do. This is not the Korean war. It is not the gulf war. When we allocate our resources we must bear that in mind.

The Americans, to their credit under the leadership of Mr. Bush, have recognized this fact. That is why NATO's campaign is clearly restricted to the Taliban and not to the people of Afghanistan. It is why food aid for the population accompanies the destruction aimed at the Taliban and the terrorists. It is why Mr. Bush has initiated his imaginative and laudable campaign to raise money in the United States for Afghan children.

Let us imagine if we had applied these same principles in other places where conflict raises charges of terrorism, in the Middle East or in Sri Lanka, for example, or in the former gulf war. If we had taken steps to diffuse the grievances that give rise to and give support to terrorists and populations that live in terrible conditions, surely we must now double our efforts to find just and equitable political solutions to these conflicts if we are to eradicate terrorism in the long term.

As I watched Mr. Blair in his press conference this morning with Mr. Arafat, I saw a statesman in the world attempting to do just that. It seems to me that we as Canadians must find out where our niche is, where we can bring our assets to bear.

We have many assets besides our military of which we have spoken tonight and of which we will speak in the future with admiration. We are a country that provides its citizens of whatever origin with opportunities in life. In respect of international relations we have worked with other countries and civilizations in the same manner of openness, tolerance and respect that marks our domestic political environment.

We can bring this goodwill to bear in the diplomacy which will be essential if the coalition against terrorism is to hold. We can leverage the respect we have as peacekeepers in the struggle we must face in the coming months and years as we deal with the menace of terrorism.

We have an asset to which we often refer when talking of our comparative advantage in international trade: our population. I represent a riding where I am proud to say 12,000 people live. In Toronto Centre--Rosedale, in a place called St. James Town, some 57 languages are spoken. A multicultural society which speaks most of the languages of the world is found in Toronto. That is an asset in the multicultural and interdependent world in which we live, but surely today it is also an asset from a trade and other points of view.

How will we as a government find a way to use this asset in the new fight against terrorism, particularly in the crucial area of intelligence? If it is languages and cultural knowledge we require, will our armed forces, diplomatic corps and security services take advantage of what we have or will we waste this precious asset?

We must listen to the ideas of Canadian citizens. A constituent phoned me the other day and suggested we use some of our aid to drop radios into Afghanistan to enable the population there to understand what is going on in the world. Small radios cost something like $7 apiece. This might be a practical suggestion. We should be listening to the ideas of citizens to help bring better understanding to the fight before us.

I agree entirely with the observation of my colleague, Mr. Lincoln, who said we must look at the way Canadian aid is developed. If we are to address the root causes of terrorism, attempt to alleviate poverty, reduce oppression and bring good governance, we have many wonderful programs in CIDA and other Canadian government programs. However if this is to be expanded, and expanded it must be, we must find better, more efficient, more attractive and more culturally sensitive ways to bring these assets to bear so we truly can eradicate the conditions which give rise to terrorism.

Other members tonight have mentioned the introduction of the bill in the House this morning that deals with anti-terrorism measures. I would agree with many of them when I say we will be called upon to look at the bill to ensure it preserves the values and traditions of our society.

The Prime Minister was clear when he spoke to that this evening. He said he would be calling on the justice committee to bear the bill with great scrutiny. Those of us in the House who do not have the privilege of sitting on the justice committee will be equally vigilant in ensuring the bill respects and preserves our democratic values. These are the values we are called upon to preserve when we are elected to the House, as Mr. Lincoln said in his quotation from Senator Biden.

Much work has been done in the House which enables us to have a greater understanding of the issues we must now confront. My own committee, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, has recently reported on the Caucasus, the sanctions on Iraq, and other issues which enable us to have a better understanding of the world in which we live.

The challenge is that we must now adapt to changed circumstances. We must work together in ways we have not done before to increase our understanding and knowledge of the complexity of the world in which we live. We must make sure that understanding is informed by the values of our society as reflected by the constituents we have the privilege to represent.

[Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, October 5th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, since the speaker from the Alliance had taken advantage of expressing outrage, I thought perhaps at the beginning of my questions and comments I could allow my outrage to be expressed as well. That is, I think, in order, not that I would mention any members.

I would like to thank the hon. member for his very thoughtful speech. It is indicative of the great knowledge of the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca and his interest in international affairs. We really appreciate his comments in the House.

I particularly appreciated the fact that he pointed out that the bill is largely a housekeeping measure and that when it comes to the police powers which he referred to in the bill, he did point out that in fact if we are to have coherent and excellent international co-operation and international meetings in our country, the police must be able to have the proper powers to be able to manage them, respectful as they are of the rights of Canadian citizens to protest, to express their views.

If we think back to the most recent summit we held in Canada, the summit in Quebec City, we would say that our police, at all levels, behaved with extraordinary coherence. They behaved extremely well in making sure that the rights of everyone were respected in very difficult and trying circumstances.

The reason I mention this is that I was in the House when the member for Surrey Central, the lead off speaker from the member's party, spoke about the bill. If I understood the member for Surrey Central, he was very critical of those provisions. He said he did not understand why those provisions would be there. He did not understand the reasonableness that was contained in the bill. He sounded more like the member for Burnaby--Douglas, who compared the bill to something like the War Measures Act.

I am trying to understand from the hon. member where his party is coming from. Is it supporting the police and the need of the Canadian government to have important meetings in this country and to enable our police authorities to manage those meetings or is it criticizing the provisions of the bill which would enable the police to do that?

Perhaps he might also wish to comment on his last statement, that he felt the bill should be broader in scope and deal with things like conditionality on IMF loans and other things. I presume the hon. member was just using this as an occasion to talk about a favourite hobbyhorse of his. I would not have thought that he normally would think IMF conditionality would be appropriately put in a bill that deals with diplomatic immunities and other rather more mundane matters.

[Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, October 5th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since we are taking advantage of expressing our outrage at procedures in the House, perhaps you will allow me to express my outrage that the member for Athabasca, when he called for quorum, then left the House himself, thereby delaying debate.

[International Aid, October 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, some time ago Canada adopted sanctions against Pakistan. Yesterday the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister for International Cooperation announced measures to assist Pakistan.

Would the minister please tell the House why we have lifted the sanctions against Pakistan?

[Canada-U.S. Meeting, September 20th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to speak tonight as I spoke on Monday night. However, after sitting in and listening to the debate, this is an opportunity for us to gather as a family in the House to hear one another's reflections on this very important matter. However, I thought this debate was to be about what message we would like the Prime Minister to carry on behalf of the people of Canada to the president of the United States.

I had the opportunity of hearing the president speak this evening, like many members of the House. I was impressed by his words and by the extraordinary enthusiasm expressed by our colleagues, the members of congress, senators and congressmen. Many are personally known by the members of this House. We have worked with them, and respect them. We have looked to them for their wisdom to help resolve what is an extraordinary, complicated and difficult issue for us all to deal with.

I did not think that the debate tonight would be as partisan as it has been. I am disappointed by some of the remarks from my colleagues across the floor who have chosen to speak about the inadequacies of the policies of the government rather than what message the Prime Minister should be taking to the president of the United States.

I agree with my colleagues across the floor, particularly my colleague who spoke so eloquently about her riding, which is linked to that of the United States. This may be of some amusement to members of the House, but in some respects my riding of Toronto Centre--Rosedale is also a border riding. It is on Lake Ontario and across the lake is Rochester. I have as much a border riding as many others.

I agree with all members of the House that the first message that we want the Prime Minister to take to the president of the United States is that we are a North American family. First and foremost that is what we are.

My mother was American and my father Canadian. If things had been different, I would have been on the other side of the border. I might have been in that other house, if I had been lucky enough to be elected by my citizens to represent them, as I consider it the greatest privilege of my life to represent the citizens of my riding in this House.

We are a family. As members of a family, we have a right to speak frankly to the other members of the family and tell them what we believe and how we want them to behave.

I listened to the president of the United States tonight and I was impressed by his sincerity and determination to deal with the immediate causes of terrorism. I am impressed by the statements of determination expressed by my colleagues from the other side to ensure that our society will be protected by strengthening our systems of defence, our police forces and our immigration policies.

I call upon all members to be loyal and to stand shoulder to shoulder and support the United States at this time. If we do not support the United States, we are not supporting ourselves because we are all under attack. As the president stated tonight in his speech before congress, some 60 nations of peoples were represented in that building that was attacked. As stated by my colleague from Mount Royal, all humanity was attacked in those buildings.

What are we as members of the House trying to come to grips with? How do we extend beyond the immediacy of the message that we must deal with this and talk to what is the only superpower in the world, the greatest power on the face of the planet? The United States clearly has the military power to annihilate any enemy of any kind. There is no question about that.

I listened to an American admiral on television this morning. He was a very wise man who said there was no military response to the issue. He said there is only a limited military capability to deal with terrorism because terrorists disappear into the night.

This is a personal reflection, but I read with interest an article my son wrote on the front page of this morning's National Post about consultations he had with Mr. bin Laden's people in Pakistan.

My son happens to be in Pakistan. I am concerned about him. Anybody would be whose own flesh and blood was on the frontline in these circumstances. He is there because he believes that in a free and democratic society he has a duty to write about the complexities of the issues and allow our citizens to understand what they are about.

They are not just about immediate strikes because, as we read in his article, Mr. bin Laden, the rebels, the terrorists and the people of Afghanistan have many caves they can go into.

As the admiral said on television this morning, we do not have the immediate technical information or intelligence to know exactly where to strike. My colleague the defence critic, whom I respect a great deal, knows that as well as I do.

It is not an immediate strike that we need to tell our American colleagues about. They know how to do that. They have a greater intelligence and military capacity than we do. They are the greatest power in the world.

The message our Prime Minister needs to convey to the U.S. president is the one he gave to the House when we had this debate on Monday. He said we must have a commitment to do in the long run that which will be effective, not to do in the short run that which will give us a sense we have accomplished something but which would in reality be counterproductive.

That is what we are here tonight to debate. That is why I was so pleased to sit and listen to the debate by my colleague from Mount Royal, a gentleman who has spent his life in academics as well as practical law. He is a learned person known for his interest in human rights throughout the world. As many in the House may know, he has argued in favour of the Palestinians in the Israeli supreme court. He set out for us tonight a vision of a world governed by laws and not by violence, a world in which we could maintain the rule of law together.

Our Prime Minister owes it to the Canadian people not only to go to the president of the United States and say “yes, we are with you”, as is suggested by our colleagues in the Alliance. I would ask our colleagues in the Alliance not to tell the Prime Minister to go to the president of the United States and say that we are inadequate and have not done enough. That is untrue and unfair, and it is partisanship at a time when it is inappropriate to be partisan.

We owe it to our colleagues and fellow citizens to urge the Prime Minister to take to the president of the United States a vision of a world which is multilateral, a world in which the United States could be not only the strongest power in the world but a true beacon of liberty.

In this vision the U.S. could share its advantages with the world and help enrich it. It would not just destroy the civilizations of its enemies but share with them the wealth it has been able to create. It could help make a better world in which all could participate.

Surely that is what Canada is all about. The other day I went to the local mosque in my riding. Somali people and Muslims from all over were there. Many came to up me and said their identity was Canadian. Many such young people have come to me and said they believed they were Canadians and that we were creating, at least in Toronto which is the area I know, a tolerant society that was multicultural, multifaceted and multidimensional.

Surely at this time of crisis we need to listen to the voices of people who tell us that the world and its problems are multifaceted and multidimensional and require a multilateral and sophisticated approach.

My colleagues in the Alliance and I need to strengthen our defences. Yes, we must stand clearly against terrorism. However, we must surely go beyond that. We must reach out to others. We must create conditions in the world where terrorism will be defeated not because people have been killed but because people realized a better life was available to them. That is what I want our Prime Minister to say when he talks to the president of the United States.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely there is no question. Probably all members of the House will be discussing that together. We need more resources. I agree with the member. We are not innocent in suggesting that there is some sort of air wand, that we can solve this by understanding root causes. There are evil people and they must be hunted down the way criminals are, in the way we are trying to find drug dealers, the essence of drugs and the sale of drugs. These issues will require more sophisticated policing and more sophisticated knowledge.

I agree in terms of what we should be doing about airplanes and protection. We travel on airplanes. I have never understood why the cockpits are open the way they are.

These are the issues we have to look at. Those are the practical issues. However I beg members of the House that we not just focus on those issues but also that we see whether there is not some way in which we can focus, if I can take us back to the Irish experience, on getting a political solution which would draw positively on political support for this type of activity in the general population.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I take the question in the sincerity with which it was posed by my colleague, whom I also respect.

Let me go back to my analogy of the IRA. No one on this or any side of the House accepted the criminality of the acts of the IRA, their bombings and killings of innocent people, but the fact of the matter was they got support in the population around them. There were a lot of people who believed that their motives were perhaps justified in spite of the fact that they may have disapproved of their acts.

When I say that we must go to the root causes of the issue, what I am saying is that we must remove from the people who live in the Muslim and Arab worlds the belief that it is worth supporting this type of act. We must remove from those people who have lived in refugee camps for 50 years, who have seen their children killed, their people living in squalor and dying, the belief that they have nothing to lose so why should they not support this type of activity.

If we do not address that, we will never manage to address the facts because there will always be a new criminal. This is often a debate that we on this side of the House have with our colleagues from the Alliance. When it comes to criminality in our own country, how do we deal with it? Do we just smack the criminal, or do we have a society in which the origins of criminality are addressed in a way in which we can get to these issues?

Surely this is not a foolish way to go about this. History teaches us that if we do not come to an understanding of where these problems are coming from, if we do not get to the root causes of them, we will suffer these issues over and over and over again. That is what we are asking for in the House.

I beg my colleagues on the other side of the House to work with us as Canadians to see what we can do to make a better world, to make sure this type of issue is not supported by other people in the world. That is what we want to try to do.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to rise at this late hour in the House but I believe this is an extraordinary and important debate and I am very happy to engage in it. I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Nepean--Carleton.

Most issues have been discussed and most things have been said in this debate. I think everyone in the House has been enormously touched by the tragedy that occurred in New York last week. Every one of us is united in desiring to convey to our American friends and Canadian victims and, as I learned tonight at dinner with colleagues of mine from around the world, Germans, French, Japanese, almost every nationality, including the nationality of the perpetrators of that terrible event, were represented in those buildings. That is why this issue touches us as deeply as it does.

It was not just an attack on the World Trade Center. It clearly was an attack that envisaged the World Trade Center because these terrorists wished to strike terror at the heart of the United States of America which is, and I agree with others who have spoken in this debate, the bulwark of democracy and our greatest friend and ally. However they also wished to strike terror into the hearts of us all because they wished to strike at a symbol where we all work and where we all assemble, and they used the basic instruments that we all use every day when we travel. Every member of the House gets on an airplane. The terrorists were very intelligent, clever people who chose the instrument of what is the very essence of modern society to strike at the essence of modern society.

In many ways the victims of this attack could have been any one of us. Many of our colleagues and many of my friends were in that building. My friend from Wild Rose told us that he came from the United States. He or his children might have been there. My mother was American. I might have been there in other circumstances. Any one of us in the House tonight might have been there.

We were touched by this tragedy because we recognized the nature of the commonality of humanity that was at stake in this tremendous tragedy. That is why it is so important to get to the bottom of this, to get it right and to make sure that our approach is right in dealing with this issue.

I think not only of the victims of the tragedy, the United States, but also of our colleagues in congress and in the administration. Many of us in the House tonight have many good friends in congress. I think of the tremendous responsibility that they have when they face the agonizing decisions that they will have to make to ensure that the way in which they respond to this event is one that will strike not just at individual terrorists but at terrorism itself.

That, it seems to me, is the way in which we have to analyze the issue. It is a much more complex and difficult issue because of that. When we turn our thoughts to the future we have to think of that. I know we will disagree. I listened tonight and sometimes the debate got a little hot. I listened to my colleagues ask why we are not doing more about this or doing more about that. I will come back to that.

We should and need to have that debate but it seems to me that we must first start from the premise the Prime Minister left with us today in his important speech to the House. He said something that I thought was extraordinarily important for us all to bear in mind at this time. He said that we must be committed to do what works in the long run, not what makes us feel good in the short run. Or, as put by a United States air force general who was cited by the leader of the NDP in the House today, “We must act on this event or we will invite more attacks, but we must not react excessively in a way that would put us on the same footing as the perpetrators of the attack” for, as I might add, we will breed a thirst for more revenge and more such actions that will cause us all to descend into the hell that the terrorists who committed that act wish us to descend into.

We are engaged in a war against terrorism, not just a war against individual terrorists. This means we cannot just stamp out cells of individuals and certain groups. In spite of the discussions we have had tonight, I would put myself on the side of those who believe that we must understand and deal with the root causes of terrorism: poverty, hopelessness, the desperation of innocent lives destroyed by conflicts in Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East, all too numerous to name in the House, which have been left unresolved for much too long.

An analogy which comes to mind is that of the IRA. All of us in the House understand and know what has taken place in Ireland. We know that for a long time the British, who are familiar with terrorism, dealt with the IRA. We cannot say that the British authorities were foolish people. They were very sophisticated. Yet there were still bombs going off. Terror and terrible events still occurred. It was only once a political solution was arrived at in Ireland that the majority of the population was able to say, “We will no longer tolerate this sort of activity” and came to understand that they could isolate those people.

I beg our friends in the Alliance on the other side of the House to understand that when we on this side speak about the root causes, it is not some sort of airy-fairy innocent thing we must deal with. We believe strongly that we must hit them and hit them hard but for God's sake let us hit them intelligently. Let us understand that if we do it the wrong way, we will be creating more problems. Let us deal with it the way it was dealt with in Ireland where there will be a political solution to these conflicts which will ensure that the population will rally around the solutions. Otherwise we are doomed to failure.

That is what we are asking for and that is what we need to do. We have to ask ourselves what we can do. We can do things.

I congratulate my colleague from the Conservative Party, the member for Cumberland--Colchester who has come up with an initiative for a peace conference involving the Middle East which I hope will take place in Halifax. The member for St. Paul's who is here with me tonight will be participating in that. I hope to have an opportunity to participate in it as well. It may be risky. We are inviting politicians from Israel, from the Palestinian authority to come together to discuss issues. In this climate this will be difficult but maybe with the will of God and the goodwill of some of us in this House we will be able to make a small change in the attitudes of people and bring about some changes.

We owe it to those who died in New York and those who are dying in that region today to take the risk and to do something. We can do it in this House if we reach out. Our parliamentary work will require it. There are committees to look at these issues. I certainly intend to urge my colleagues in the foreign affairs committee to look at these issues. In our work with our U.S. colleagues, we can encourage multilateral approaches rather than just unilateral approaches on their behalf. We can work in multilateral organizations, NATO, the OSCE, the IPU, all of those organizations which members in this House participate in.

The other thing we can do is work in this great country of ours. When the Prime Minister spoke on Friday he mentioned the nature of our society. I personally attended at a mosque in my riding on Friday. Just like my colleague on the other side who spoke of the mosque that is located in his riding, a Canadian Muslim came to me and said, “I am an individual. My identity is Canadian. I am a Canadian now. I don't wish to be tarred with this brush”.

When we speak about these issues in our dialogue here, we must ensure that people understand that individuals commit crimes. It is not communities, not societies and not religions.

I was with a group of young immigrant people in my riding the other morning. They were very nervous about what this means for them. We must assure them that they are part of our society and that they do not have to worry, that they are part of a proud community that rallies together.

We have built a society unique in the world. It is one which is respected around the world for its openness and tolerance and respect for others. We must ensure that our own rich, important, open and tolerant society is not among the victims of this terrible tragedy. When discussing the legislative framework which I have heard discussed tonight in the House, I ask my colleagues to bear this in mind.