Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the debate.
I will preface my remarks by saying that there are certainly many of us in the House who were here, you and I included, Mr. Speaker, in 1991 when the gulf war transpired. The member who just spoke said that in fact he was not here, but he was giving expert commentary on it. He said that he was unusually qualified to address this debate. That could be, I suppose. I do not know if any of us ever is unusually qualified to do anything actually, but I appreciate his interpretation and estimation of himself.
Nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, I think back to when you and I and several others were here when that war broke out in 1991. I remember the feeling, and I am sure you do too, Mr. Speaker, of thinking we really were at war. It was a powerful, frightening, unnerving time for all of us for sure, but here we are this many years later.
I understand that war was to liberate Kuwait and the upshot of it possibly was to bring to its knees the tyranny in Iraq and the Saddam Hussein regime. I think about how many years have transpired since then.
Even though the member talked about how these weapons of mass destruction or unconventional weapons have been available for 50 years, there are all kinds of things that have been available for 50 years. We see how things have escalated in the world. We have seen how available things are with the computer age, with the advent of CNN.
Again I am reminded of September 11 where we watched everything live. We seem to watch everything live these days. I think that maybe escalates the emotion of it certainly, but it also escalates the thrill of those who use these kinds of tactics on their own people and on other countries as well.
To say there may be small amounts in a quart jar is one thing, but when he talked about the moral authority of the United Nations and the resolutions that it is coming forward with, I agree with him. There certainly should be moral authority on that.
If I had had a chance to ask the member about the number of UN resolutions that seem to be totally ignored by Hussein, we could list off a number of them. Many people have done that in the debate so far. It is one thing to say we are not sure it is a big deal. That is one end of the spectrum. Of course the other end is that we would all go hysterical and think that this is something we need to act on tomorrow afternoon. Somewhere in the middle probably lies the truth and somewhere in the middle lies reasonable concern and assumption.
As we look at that just in terms of an overview, we need to make sure that we are acting wisely, that we are acting responsibly and that we are acting consistently. I am sad to say that I think our Prime Minister has acted inconsistently in terms of comments that he made during the gulf war in 1991. That obviously causes some concern. However, with the things that have happened just even in the last few weeks, I am not sure anyone in the world, let alone George W. Bush, would understand just exactly what Canada's position is.
If we have a plan ahead of time and we follow it through wisely and consistently, it seems to me the world ought to know what it is. If we in Canada, regardless of our political stripe, went to coffee shops and talked to people, who vote for all political parties, we would find people who would support each of the parties. I do not know that any one of them would be able to say what is Canada's stand, those who voted Liberal, Alliance or any other party. I am not sure that any Canadian would be able to articulate what Canada's plan and stance is on this issue.
After listening to the debate carefully and looking at Hansard one would wonder on the government side what in the world it is in terms of the inflammatory remarks that have come forward, and I am not sure that people really would know or articulate the plan. I have watched this.
I have watched the Prime Minister for many years and I am not certain what the plan is over there either, and I spend a whole lot more time paying attention to this than many other people who are busy with their lives and raising kids, et cetera.
Of course we should take safety and appreciation for that umbrella group, but when so many of those UN resolutions have been violated, paid no attention to, ignored, it certainly does cause us some concern. The United States has accused Iraq of the following charges and I would invite anyone to say true or false to them.
Violating the UN Security Council resolutions by refusing to fully disclose its activities regarding the acquisitions. I think we would have to answer true to that. I think Iraq has violated those Security Council resolutions.
Refusing to cooperate with the UN special commission and allow full inspections of sites where materials related to such weapons programs may be held. Again, I would question the member. Even if it is a quart jar it could do a whole pile of damage. If a person were clean and innocent he would not care who came in. If people are not messing around on their income taxes, they should not care when the auditors show up at their door. They should just say, “Come on in, I am clean, I am innocent, I have a clean conscience. Come on in and check it out”.
If Saddam Hussein sent that signal saying to come on over, I think people would breathe a whole lot more easily. Yet we see that there is that hesitation, that someone could come in and say “Sure you can look around, but only here”. I think the answer is true for refusing to cooperate with the UN special commission.
Iraq supports international terrorist groups operating against the United States, Israel and western interests. I think there is some of that so I think the answer to that would have to be true as well.
When we see the UN resolutions and some of the things that Saddam Hussein and his regime are refusing to comply with, obviously we need to be concerned.
As I mentioned earlier about the frustration I had with some of the things that have gone forward in the debate here, it astounds me and has for a long time, for 30 years give or take of Liberal dominance in this country, or 100 years of Liberal dominance throughout the world, that people think it is perfectly safe to just tuck themselves into the government benches and then just bash the daylights out of the Americans. One only needs to study Hansard . Members should not take my word for it but should look at Hansard and see some of the unbelievable comments.
There are extremist, inflammatory comments about George Bush wanting to go to war immediately and that this is going to happen. That just raises the emotion and the lack of logic of this debate. So when government members are thinking it is just fine to poke a great big stick in the eye of our next door neighbours, who will we go to when we need help?
There is a lack of trust on both sides of the border due to softwood lumber, airline tariffs and the list could go on. Yet when we need them, the Americans are our big cousin. It is almost like the Prime Minister would have to go cap in hand to Washington and say, “Never mind, we did not really mean all that”, yet it is easy to turn around. We saw that in the last U.S. election where the nephew of the Prime Minister said, “Well, I do not know who I would vote for”. It is not our responsibility to get into that whole area of bashing the Americans. It just amazes me when I think that this is acceptable behaviour for government members and in fact the Prime Minister himself. Study Hansard .
