Andrew Telegdi

[Petitions, June 13th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions, starting with a petition signed by 76 people, calling upon Parliament to maintain the law on marriage as being a lifelong union of one man and woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Petitions, June 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I also have another set of petitions that call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find cures and therapies necessary to treat the illnesses and diseases of suffering Canadians.

[Petitions, June 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting petitions on behalf of my constituents. The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation that would provide legal recognition and protection of Canadian children from fertilization to their birth.

[Mike Lazaridis, June 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to announce that as I speak, Dr. Mike Lazaridis is being installed as the eighth chancellor of the University of Waterloo.

Dr. Lazaridis is known as a visionary, innovator and engineer of extraordinary talent. His creations, which include the BlackBerry and other world firsts, have won dozens of industry awards for excellence.

Dr. Lazaridis is a passionate advocate for education and scientific research. He has supported his community and country with generous gifts to educational institutions. He gave $100 million to establish the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, a world centre for excellence based in Waterloo and affiliated with more than 30 Canadian universities.

Mike to came this country as a six year old boy and is now a fiercely proud Canadian.

On behalf of the House, I want to congratulate Dr. Mike Lazaridis on his installation as chancellor of the University of Waterloo.

[Petitions, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by a great number of people. The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children be outlawed.

[Petitions, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present two petitions. The first one deals with rural route mail couriers who are requesting to have the right to organize and to negotiate with Canada Post.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague across the way accused me of being a Trotskyite. I am a Liberal, let me say. He accused me of being a comfortable Liberal.

Unlike most members of the House, I have actually experienced what war and revolution are about. I knew what oppression was under the Soviet Union. I knew what happened during the Hungarian revolution when in part it was incited by the United States of America through Radio Free Europe and promises of help and then no help came in 1956 when the Soviet tanks rolled in. I very strongly believe in multilateralism and that is exactly the reason why.

My playground was the bombed out buildings of Budapest. I know what it means to stand in line all night to get a loaf of bread.

To me this is not about theory. To me it is living with people who have lost fathers, mothers, grandparents and children. This is what it is about to me.

Was Iraq going to be disarmed? Yes, it was going to be disarmed. If it was going to happen it was going to happen because the world community was coming together and was going to make it happen. But unilateral action has been taken.

I am ashamed that the member across the way would equate that to morality. When innocent civilians die, it is not being done in the name of God or any morality. I can say there is a special place reserved in hell for those people who use religious and moral beliefs for waging war.

A TV program played on the CBC in the last couple of weeks. It showed the slaughter of the people of Iraq, the Kurds in Iraq. Who was complicit in supplying the weapons over there? Who was complicit in supplying the helicopters? It was the government of Ronald Reagan.

The UN is far from perfect but it is the best hope we have in this global village.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, as President Carter said, war should be the last resort, when all peaceful means are exhausted. It would have been easy enough to get more people from the United Nations over there to say that they would be there to watch that the disarming happened.

The reality is that this has been a unilateral action. I am not surprised at the Alliance and I am not surprised that we are disagreeing on this. I know if the Alliance was the government, Canada would be at war and it would be the highest priority. I recognize that. That is where we fundamentally disagree. I believe in the multilateralism of the United Nations as the best way in moving forward and working toward a secure world.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, let me answer the questions the member has raised. First, I will deal with Kosovo. Kosovo was a regional conflict which fell under the auspices of NATO. The difference between Kosovo and Iraq is this. Ethnic cleansing was taking place in Kosovo.

As much as I supported us going into Kosovo under NATO, I was horrified to see the low value placed on civilian lives. As the House will recall, the war was fought from 50,000 feet high. We had needless slaughter of innocent civilians.

In terms of the UN not doing its job, the United Nations belongs to us all. The United Nations is supposed to get the civilized world acting together. That is the best hope we have for civilization on this planet.

We cannot take a situation where a former colonial power has used chemical weapons in Iraq, and that is England, goes back there tries to say that it is part of a force of liberation. The fact of the matter is, and we all saw it on television, the UN weapons inspectors were destroying missiles that had a range greater than 100 miles. They were being destroyed and then came the war.

The fact is the inspections were working, weapons were being destroyed and the world community was coming together. If there needed to be this action of going to war against Iraq, it would have been done under the auspices of the United Nations. That is a very important difference; the umbrella of the UN versus unilateralism.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, the decision not to get involved in the invasion of Iraq was a principled one that I support. We have been consistent in saying that Canadian involvement in a military action against Iraq could only take place as part of a multilateral force authorized by a resolution of the United Nations Security Council. This view is echoed in e-mails, letters and phone calls I have received from my constituents, and the resolution passed by the council of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo.

I am a strong supporter of our armed forces but decisions regarding what actions they take are ours to make. While I support the role that Canada is playing in the war on terrorism and understand the purpose of our military presence in the Persian gulf, I would have been happier if we were consistent and had no military personnel in the war zone.

I am disappointed with the Alliance, which very much like its neo-conservative American colleagues, supports this war. Its criticism of the government's position in a democratic debate in the House of Commons exceeds any criticism made against the war. Further, if Alliance members truly were concerned that critical comments could hurt Canada, they would not magnify that criticism. War with its heavy casualties, mostly of innocent civilians, evokes strong emotions. When innocent civilians are dying, we should be having a heated debate.

No one has any illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal dictator whose actions have kept his people in a state of terror, brought financial ruin and inflicted great suffering of his people and neighbouring countries. However much as I would like to see him ousted, I do not believe that this war at this time has a legal basis in international law. It also sets a dangerous precedent that other antagonistic countries that fear each other, such as Pakistan and India, might use to justify a pre-emptive action of their own with potentially catastrophic consequences for the whole world.

Only a UN resolution could sanction this action. It is unseemly that rather than waiting a few more weeks while Iraq was destroying rockets that have a range exceeding 100 miles, under the supervision of the United Nations weapons inspectors in accordance with the terms of UN resolution 1441, the U.S. and Britain chose to bypass the UN and launch a unilateral attack against Iraq.

The majority of UN members supported more time for weapons inspectors. As former President Jimmy Carter recently said in the New York Times :

The war can only be waged as a last resort, with all nonviolent options exhausted. In the case of Iraq, it is clear that alternatives to war exist.

Canada places great value in the United Nations and other international organizations. I am disappointed that the U.S. administration does not share this view and this is reflected in it not supporting initiatives such as the Kyoto accord, the international landmines treaty and the World Court. These are the proper venues for achieving a safe and peaceful world.

This war threatens to diminish these institutions. Under the leadership of President Bush, the U.S. government has come to believe that it is acting from a place of highest moral authority, without UN Security Council approval and ignoring the checks and balances that international institutions provide. They are leading us into a new world order dominated by a Pax Americana. They believe that America has the God-given right to be the lawmaker, judge and enforcer of world order.

The philosophy of the Bush doctrine was spawned by a group of neo-conservatives in Washington led by Richard Perle. In practice it extends the principles of the Munroe doctrine for U.S. hegemony in the western hemisphere to the whole world. The arrogance of the claim to have the right to unilaterally meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign countries is simply astounding.

I quote U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, the dean of the U.S. Congress, who said:

--today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.

The signatories of the U.S. declaration of independence who founded a nation based on the principles of justice and freedom for all citizens would be turning in their graves to see how these principles have been taken hostage.

The U.S. has propped up dictatorial and corrupt regimes in Panama, Guatemala, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam and elsewhere. It has supported armed opposition groups like the Contras in Nicaragua and the Taliban in Afghanistan, caring neither about the political stripe nor the objectives of their allies, as long as they served American interests at that time.

America has been complicit in the overthrow of legitimately elected democratic governments such as Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 and Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 that was replaced by the Shah resulting in the Ayatollah Khoumeni.

The flavour of the week is the eviction of Saddam Hussein. Who will be next? The message America is sending to the world is summed up very well by John Brady Kiesling, a career U.S. diplomat, in his recent letter of resignation to Colin Powell. He said:

When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?

I understand the fears of some of my constituents who have written, urging that Canada should not upset Americans or we will suffer economic consequences. To them I say that we are not powerless in our economic relationship with the United States. We are their largest trading partner and their largest supplier of energy. In my community we export a great deal of information technology. They buy from us because it serves both our interests. It is important to remember that while we are interdependent economically, we are independent politically.

This war is causing much death and destruction to the people of Iraq. I regret the thousands of casualties. I regret the use of cluster bombs. I regret the threat to use technical nuclear weapons, the ultimate weapons of mass destruction. I regret the fact that the U.S. propaganda machine blames the Iraqis for casualties that the U.S. has caused.

This war is being watched close up as no other conflict before. Muslims, Arabs and people from other cultures, races and religions all around the world have a front row seat. They see America as an aggressor, fighting an antiseptic high tech war from 50,000 feet without concern for the horrific impact on a helpless Muslim civilian population. I fear for the consequences of this action.

I do not want a world where we will be forced to adopt the Israeli lifestyle, where people fear to take the bus or go for a walk with their family. Israel, the military superpower in the Middle East, is caught in a Catch-22 where it has tied its military might and where its military might is undermining the peace that could give it security.

This is where the U.S. policy is leading us, to a world full of Oklahoma style bombings, sniper attacks, anthrax scares and terrorist reprisals, a world where we must sacrifice our rights and freedoms for security.

It is important to remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, “those who give up freedom for security deserve neither security or freedom.”

Also the words of George Washington, who said, “eternal vigilance is the price we pay for freedom.”

I weep for this world. I weep for all the innocent children, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, whose tragic death is equally painful to their parents.

We live on a fragile planet, in a global village. Events such as the ecological disasters of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl that occur in one place resonates throughout.

This war is a setback. We must redouble our efforts in strengthening those international institutions that provide the venues we need to meet these objectives.

Canada has taken the lead in working toward a new world order, where all nations are subject to the rule of international law, all nations give up their weapons of mass destruction and all nations work together for peace; a world order where multilateralism and not unilateralism is the norm.