John Bryden

[Supply, March 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is very normal for countries when they are at war to have their populations support their soldiers in the field. I draw the attention of the member opposite to an item that was in the papers this morning where an Iraqi soldier, just an young man, had been captured and when asked why he was fighting for a regime like Saddam Hussein, he simply replied that he was fighting for his country. It is very normal for people to be moved when their soldiers are in the field.

The member opposite said that the Prime Minister did not take a principled position, but of course he did. He said that Canada should not go to war without the support of the UN Security Council. This was a position supported by 52 members of the Commonwealth. Only Australia and the United Kingdom have joined the coalition of the willing. The member has said that the coalition and the Americans are our allies, but surely the Commonwealth are the people who we have shared democratic values with for years and these are the people whom the Prime Minister and Tony Blair should be heeding, not Eritrea and Ethiopia and other countries like that which are in the coalition of the willing.

[Supply, March 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech of the member opposite with great attention. He mentioned that there is a coalition of the willing and he equated those which had not joined to countries like Libya.

Given that the British parliament has given lessons of democracy to the Commonwealth countries, how does he account for the fact that of the 54 Commonwealth nations, only Australia and Britain are members of the coalition of the willing? Is he suggesting that the other 52 members of the Commonwealth should be lumped in with Libya?

[Supply, March 20th, 2003]

Someone on the opposite side asks if I am proud of that. Yes, I am proud of it. It is so important for Canada to stand up for its own principles. The one thing that we will take from this is that Canada is its own country with its own values, its own democratic values. At last we perhaps have broken the chain of Britain and we have become Canada for the Canadians who live in this country and not the monarchy or anyone else in a different land.

[Supply, March 20th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, now that the bombs are falling I have struggled as much as I can with trying to find some good or benefit out of what is occurring by the attack on Iraq. I share the misgivings that have been expressed in the House about the attack and how it threatens institutions like the United Nations. It raises the spectre of retaliatory aggression by terrorists. There are many, many negatives, many of them negatives in the interests of the United States itself, and I have commented upon those.

So it is with a struggle that one searches to find a good, a real good, out of what is occurring today and I think I have found one. I would say it is a beautiful good and it is also something that is very sad. That good focuses on what happened with Turkey leading up to the decision to attack Iraq.

Turkey, you will remember, Madam Speaker, is a Muslim nation that for a very, very long time has struggled to balance religion with advancement of western economic and political values. It has been a long struggle that has extended over a century and a half, and only now does it have a parliament that has been re-elected with great hopes of joining the European Union, of being accepted as one of the western nations, not just in terms of economics but also in terms of the freedoms and liberties that have been developed by the western nations.

I would like to quote from the Honourable Abdullah Gul, who spoke to his parliament. He was speaking to the proposed program of the new government. In his remarks, which dealt with many things economic, with trying to rescue Turkey from severe economic problems and political problems, he said:

The objective of our democratic government approach is to secure all civil and political freedoms, primarily that of thought, belief, education, association and entrepreneurship and to make available an environment where people can continue with their individual development free from any fear or worry.

In this framework, the international democratic standards in basic human rights and freedoms, that we regard as the accumulation of humankind, will be taken as the basis of all our policies.

Let us think of what was just said there: basic rights and freedoms, democratic standards that are the accumulation of humankind.

I would submit to you, Madam Speaker, that this is one of the great gifts that the western democracies, the western countries, have given to the world, and indeed it is one of the great gifts of the United States and Britain. We have to acknowledge that the United States, with its Declaration of Independence--life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all--and the model of the British parliament, has led the world into an appreciation that democracy is the hope of the world. It has taken many years to spread that idea across Europe and it has been very difficult to spread it in the third world, in the Far East, and most especially, some might say, in the Muslim world.

Here we have Turkey that is undertaking this grand experiment and is really on the threshold, I think, with language like that, of certainly joining any country like Canada or the United States in terms of our commitment to basic human rights and democratic freedoms. But Turkey is in trouble. It is in terrible trouble economically, and I think what is so significant in what has happened with Iraq is the fact that, despite its difficulties, the Turkish parliament refused to allow the Americans to use Turkish soil for an attack on Iraq and refused to allow the American army and air force to occupy Turkish bases for an attack on Iraq. I point out that this was not a decision of the leadership of Turkey. This was a decision of the parliament of Turkey. It was a democratic decision.

I suggest that this is a singular event, a brilliant event, that is coming out of this terrible thing that has happened with the war in Iraq. I say that because what we are seeing here is a nation leading other nations into saying that it is not enough to have economic wealth, that it is not enough to benefit from the largesse of the Americans or the British in order to make a decision that is morally right, at least in the eyes of that people.

We must remember that the Turkish people were offered the carrot, shall we say, of $25 billion, and the Turkish people turned it down on the basis of sticking to a moral principle. That moral principle was that the attack on Iraq without the support of the UN Security Council was not morally justified. That is the Turkish position.

We see around the world that a similar thing happened with this debate in the United Nations. It is true that the United Nations has probably been fatally wounded, but one of the very good things is that we see individual countries, some of them very small, standing up to the United States and saying, “Even though you are a superpower, even though you have tremendous economic power, we will try to do what is right”. It was because of that resolve, not because of the leadership of France or the leadership of China or the leadership of Russia, it was because the people of the world did not accept that this was a just war that the Americans and the British were embarking on.

That, Mr. Speaker, is a tremendous hope for the world. It means that countries around the world have adopted the democratic values, the respect for human rights that originally sprang from the declaration of independence and then was followed by the British parliament and spread around western Europe.

And now, Mr. Speaker, here is the sad part. The sad part is that what this implies is that the United States has probably lost its leadership as a model of democracy and liberty in the world. Indeed, we know this is so, because we know that American politics is probably no longer the model of democratic politics that the rest of the world would want to follow. What the White House has done by this attack on Iraq is it has driven the world into deciding what kind of democracy the world wants. It would appear that the leadership of the United States and of Britain is no longer there. Countries like Turkey will follow their own hearts in discovering their own democratic institutions and making sure that their members of parliament are free to speak and are elected in ways that are not dependent upon how much money one has or dependent upon special interests.

That is the evolution of democracy and I think one of the things the war in Iraq is showing us is that the countries of the world are discovering this, not just democracy,discovering a strong desire to see justice done in the world and that aggression, no matter how justified, is not acceptable, and that countries are prepared to make decisions even though those decisions are not in their own interests if it is a decision that is morally correct in their eyes.

The irony is, of course, that for the White House, the President of the United States, I really do believe the intention in his attack on Iraq is regime change in order to bring democracy to the region. And maybe it will work. There was the model of Japan and Germany in the post-war period, but I suggest that it is a very dangerous and doubtful process to expect that one can bring democracy to other countries by the sword. I am not so sure it is going to work and we will see in due course.

Finally, I would like to speak a little about how this affects Canada because it does affect Canada. It affects Canada deeply, in somewhat the same way as with Turkey. All my life growing up, I was taught to believe that Canada is very much a country of the British democratic traditions and a country very much of American cultural traditions. It is true that the British and the Americans are our closest cousins, but one of the things this has shown is that at last Canada has embarked upon a decision that actually takes it away from the leadership of Britain.

Consider the significance: this is the first war in a century that Canada has refused to follow Britain's lead in even though we have the same Queen, the same Crown.

[Situation in Iraq, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Halifax West.

Let me begin by reading some words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free”. Those words are engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty in the United States, in New York harbour. I will focus my remarks on that famous monument because I think the Statue of Liberty is central to what is happening here with respect to the Americans wanting to invade Iraq, to rescue the Iraqis from an evil dictator.

Every school child knows that the Statue of Liberty was built in cooperation with the French. It was a centennial project celebrating the declaration of independence which was declared in 1776, and a century later Americans wanted to celebrate the occasion by doing something that was really profound because, of course, the declaration of independence contains very famous words.

The declaration of independence says, among other things, that “all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. That was an incredible statement for its time and it arose out of enlightened thinking, a renaissance of thought that was occurring in the 18th century when the social institutions of the monarchy were being questioned across the globe. Some of the lead thinkers were French.

The Americans took inspiration from the French and there was the American revolution and the declaration of independence. Then the French in their turn took inspiration from the Americans with the French revolution. This sent out an enormous message to the world that individuals did count. It was not the state that counted, it was individuals who counted and that they had certain inalienable rights. The French in their turn came out with the first declaration of the rights of man and that is where we get the expression, “liberty, equality, fraternity”. That came out in 1792.

There is this huge linkage between the French and the Americans in terms of being pioneers in the development of the institutions of liberty and the rule of law and so it was no coincidence and no surprise indeed that the Americans and the French should get together and attempt to build this monument that was to symbolize all these wonderful thoughts. That monument was the Statue of Liberty. The internal structure was built by the famous Alexandre Eiffel, who built the Eiffel Tower, and the Americans built the base. The Statue of Liberty officially opened 10 years later in 1886.

Everyone in the world knows that monument. It has become, as the Americans like to say, an icon and a beacon of liberty around the world. I think that the principles that are embodied in that statue and the declaration of independence are so ingrained in the American psyche that I believe that the President of the United States is motivated by the very principles that are seen in those two symbols of American society, of American heritage. I take him at his word that he is wanting to go into Iraq to give liberty and opportunity to the starving, oppressed and the tortured. I accept that, but unfortunately, something has gone terribly wrong.

All that idealism I think is falling on barren ground and it is falling on barren ground in the world because public opinion in the world does not see the attack on Iraq as something that does embody the principles of liberty, equality, freedom and life for all. Instead, people see it as a superpower exercising its muscle and trying to come into Iraq for its own personal gain.

One of the problems in language is that much of the debate we have heard from the American representatives at the UN, and even from the president tonight, revolves around the suggestion that resolution 1441 of the Security Council gives legal authorization for the use of armed force against Iraq for its non-compliance. The Americans and the British argue that it does give this legal power and others argue the opposite way. This is to miss the point.

The problem is that the war on Iraq, the attack on Iraq without the support of the UN Security Council, is not seen as justified. All the arguments that the Americans and the British have put forward have not been sufficient to carry world opinion, so we have the situation where 90% of Turks are opposed to an attack on Iraq unilaterally, and around the globe we have similar statistics.

So if a war is not justified, if people do not see that it has been justified, then it becomes an unjust war. This is a terrible problem for the Americans, because quite apart from all other damage that might occur to the Americans, to the free world, to our institutions of the United Nations and whatever else, or the loss of trade or economic consequences, nothing compares to the damage that is going to occur toward the image of the United States as a beacon of liberty, as an upholder of the law, as a bastion of freedom.

If we were to go into New York harbour and take the ferry, not long ago we could look in one direction and see the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the symbol of the economic power of the United States. We could look in the other direction and we could see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, the symbol of freedom, of liberty, and of all the things for which the United States has been admired for many years.

I am very afraid that one of the great consequences of what is going to happen should the Americans decide to go into Iraq is that all of that will be lost. The destruction of the United States as a symbol of hope, of freedom, of liberty, of the rule of law, will be just as certain as the destruction of the World Trade Center. It will not be a matter of flying an aircraft into the Statue of Liberty. It is that the Americans, I truly fear, will destroy that symbol themselves and it will then become only a copper monument 301 feet high. It will not actually represent the hope and the wishes of the world.

I really do despair of what I see coming, because if the world loses confidence in the United States and confidence in the goodwill of the United States to other lands, then I just do not know what the consequences will be. There will be a kind of anarchy that rules the world because suddenly material wealth will become an end in its own right. Material wealth and the pursuit of happiness were always linked with the idea of liberty and giving life to other people and respecting the lives of other people. I am afraid that this has all become twisted around and what the world sees is a superpower that does not have respect for life and is only concerned about its own happiness.

I think it is a very sad situation that we are faced with now. I would hope that even at this late hour the Americans will reconsider this prospect of an attack on Iraq. In the end, whether or not Saddam Hussein is removed does not matter, because there will be an enormous and permanent loss of goodwill toward the United States and I do not know what kind of world will be left after that.

[The Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would correct me if I am wrong, but is not the constitutional responsibility to spend money on infrastructure 100% belonging to the provinces? I do not understand why he is saying it is our fault when the provinces themselves have failed to come up with the money to maintain their own infrastructure.

[The Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, with the member's permission, given the world events just now, the prospect of war in Iraq and the profound financial and economic implications it might have, can he give us some sense of his feeling about where Canada is placed in terms of our economic prospects should the Americans unilaterally attack Iraq with the assistance of the British?

[The Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I know they are suffering out in Saskatchewan and it is a great preoccupation with all members of the House of Commons. One of the things I am very proud of is that whether we are from Saskatchewan or Ontario or New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, we are concerned about the farmers in Saskatchewan.

The problem though again is this hideous situation in the United States where it is getting so difficult to compete with our product no matter how efficiently farmed because the U.S. farmers are receiving all kinds of hidden subsidies. I cannot make an intelligent analysis or reply to the member's comment opposite. The area of crop insurance is not one in the budget that I have examined personally. As a result of the intervention I will examine it though and put it in the context of the caucus members on this side who are from rural Canada and see whether there is a better solution, because always, the budget is not cast in stone. It is a formula for trying to find a way to do the best things for all Canadians and to help those sections in the country who are most in need.

Our difficulty always is that we are a country that is so dependent upon trade abroad and being so dependent, we are dependent upon the goodwill of those we trade with. One of the hardest problems recently is that goodwill from our major trading partner has been more absent than present perhaps, in the last few years.

[The Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his comment because it fits perfectly into my earlier remarks. One of the reasons why the budget is silent on these trade issues with respect to forestry, lumber and all these issues having to do with our relationship with the United States is the Americans are now completely ignoring rational trade agreements. The Americans are overwhelmingly subsidizing their farmers, as the member opposite well knows.

The reason why we cannot address the problems of the farmers in terms of trade agreements is because the Americans are acting more and more unilaterally not only in ignoring the trade agreements but in putting unfair subsidies into their industries. It is all part of a pattern that has occurred in the last couple of years, where the U.S. administration, the White House, which is in charge of foreign policy, has set an example of unilateralism and ignoring multilateralism, refusing to consider the interests of countries other than the United States, even countries as close as Canada.

As for the cod industry, I know a little about it as well. I do believe that many of the problems that existed with the east coast fishery have been as a result of federal governments of the past putting too much subsidy into the fishermen of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to the point where the fish stocks, including the cod, have been compromised. We do know that the cod stocks dropped dramatically. It is not just cod. In the east coast fishery when the cod moratorium occurred, some of these massive operations that developed as a result of federal and provincial financing, but primarily federal financing, which put more stress on the environment than the environment could stand, has switched to other types of fish that are also under threat.

Then added to that we have the whole problem that there has been severe environmental damage done to the Grand Banks and the ocean floor around our maritime provinces not only by commercial trawlers, both domestic and foreign, but I also point out that there is some evidence that the dumping of toxic chemicals at the end of the second world war may be having an effect on the cod stocks. I applaud the government for finally showing an interest in locating these dump sites of chemical weapons. I have long had the fear that it is these chemical weapons that may have been having a very negative effect on the fisheries on the east coast.

Finally, let me simply say that when the fish are not there, governments have to do drastic things. It is an accident of confederation that it is the federal government that has the yea or nay say on what fish are collected off our coasts and not the provincial governments. I would suggest if it was a power of the provincial governments, they would do exactly the same thing.

[The Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this budget is a very promising document, full of optimism and promise for the future. The government should be very proud of it because it tells a story of sound financial management over the past few years. However it is completely silent on one of the most important issues of the day; and that is what will happen if there is an attack on Iraq? In the time allotted to me, I propose to examine the implications to Canada's financial future in the short term and in the long term if the United States and Britain undertake a unilateral attack on Iraq.

I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that the budget before us tells a story of debt reduction of some $46 billion over the last five years, the creation over the last year of more than 560,000 new jobs in the economy, and economic growth of 4%, and all this in a context where other countries in the world, both the G-7 and OECD countries, all are performing less well, including the United States. If all things were equal, what we would see is continued growth in Canada, continued erosion of the debt and continued growth in the economy, while occurs in the United States the opposite phenomena occurs. The United States is now looking at an increased deficit in addition to debt of some $100 billion plus.

That is good performance in the context of a world economy that is weak. However what will happen to world economy if there is an attack on Iraq? It will be a different ball game. The people who will be hurt the most will be our American friends. I will give some examples at the very outset.

We know that a war in Iraq will create a reaction in the world. First of all, there will be a security reaction. I think the National Post had a story the other day in which the U.S. airline industry predicted a loss of 70,000 jobs and a loss of $4 billion each quarter should the United States and its ally Britain unilaterally attack Iraq. We can understand why this is so because the public perceives the airline industry and airliners themselves as extremely vulnerable to retaliatory attacks by terrorists.

For example, there was the incident in Kenya in which two surface to air missiles were fired at an Israeli airliner rising from the airport. That sent an enormous chill through the airline industry around the world. All that has to happen is for one airliner to be shot down under those circumstances and it would be total devastation worldwide in the airline industry; the American airline industry and Canada's as well.

We already have a situation where Air Canada, our carrier, is facing a $300 million loss in the first quarter and expects to have continued losses of about $300 million to $500 million in succeeding quarters. Air Canada admits quite freely that the reason why it is facing these losses, which could devastate the company and lead to bankruptcy, is because of insecurity worldwide with respect to air travellers being fearful of not the takeover of an aircraft but fearful of an attack on an aircraft.

Then there are other problems. Of course airports are centres of international communication where a lot of people congregate. People worldwide will appreciate that represents a significant hazard that no amount of security in the world could solve. We can see right there that there is a problem.

Associated with that is the insurance industry. I am speaking of the American insurance industry, the Canadian insurance industry, Lloyds of London, all these organizations that insure various kinds of corporations and various kinds of enterprises in the world. They are facing an incredible disaster should there be a unilateral attack on Iraq and should there be terrorist retaliation worldwide. We are not talking about al-Qaeda. We are talking about the release of all kinds of individuals out there who may be disgruntled for whatever reason, whether it is religious, ethical or otherwise. The focus of their anger will be on American interests both abroad and, to some degree, at home.

This will create incredible insecurity. Insurance companies will have to escalate their rates or else they will have to stop insuring companies. There is a company in my riding that handles hazardous material. It has always been able to get insurance. It had to pay for it, but it could get it. It no longer can because of the nature of the substances that it carries. Now it is going to be forced out of business because without insurance it cannot operate. That is another example and that could be billions of dollars of loss in the American economy.

Think of tourism and what has happened to tourism already, Mr. Speaker. Whether it is the Caribbean, South America, the Far East, the Middle East, or wherever we go we will find that tourism basically has evaporated. Again it is because of the fear that has been generated by the prospect of retaliation if there is a unilateral attack on Iraq.

This costs companies in the United States and Canada, and very sadly, it costs countries terribly in the world, particularly in the third world because there are many small countries that rely principally on tourism. They have lost that tourism. Look at what has happened in Indonesia with the bombing of the night club in Bali.

It is true that perhaps here in Canada there will be some small gain for tourism because Americans have to go somewhere. We could see some benefit, but this is not a benefit that we as Canadians want. We do not want this kind of benefit at this price, particularly because it is going to devastate the travel industry in the United States as well. How many billions of dollars is that going to cost the American economy?

Worst of all is the fact that we can expect a massive backlash against all things culturally American throughout the world. Already there is a systematic boycott in much of the Muslim world against American-made soft drinks, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi. This is significant for two reasons. The followers of Islam do not partake of alcoholic beverages so soft drinks are extremely important culturally in any Muslim country in the world.

Naturally the best technology, the best flavours, and the best soft drinks in the world are the ones that we too acknowledge are the best drinks in the world. They are mostly the ones that originally were invented and manufactured by the Americans: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and related products. We can travel anywhere in the Far East, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt or anywhere and we will see these products everywhere. They are manufactured under licence in these countries. These products are going to disappear from the shelves.

You may think the comparison to soft drink companies is trivial, Mr. Speaker, but it is not trivial. They are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the American economy and they will lose that market abroad.

Even worse than that is what happened just after September 11, with the sabre rattling on Iraq and the problem with respect to Israel and Palestine. There have been various tries at boycotts in Muslim nations against U.S. products. If the Americans and the British do attack Iraq without the backing of the UN Security Council, I think it is very clear from what we are reading about world opinion that the majority of people around the world would regard that as an unjust war, an unjust attack. The negative reaction to American interests abroad will be incredibly profound. It will have an enormous negative impact on the American economy.

If the American economy is affected negatively, we can be certain that the Canadian economy will be affected very negatively. What will it mean to have had surpluses of several billions of dollars? Those surpluses will disappear when we as Canadians attempt to bail out Air Canada and attempt to meet the shortfalls of revenues that we may experience.

Think of how huge, if we extrapolate that, that problem will be in the United States. We will see a situation where pharmaceutical companies will have problems selling products abroad, any kind of American manufactured goods, and not just in Muslim worlds. There could be a reaction throughout Europe and China. This possibility of going to war in Iraq without the moral authority of the UN Security Council has the potential of catastrophic economic consequences against the United States. It is not a matter of just being short term; it could be long term. As a matter of fact, it is likely to be long term.

There will be some quick hurts. We will likely see the complete paralysis of the American airline industry. That will be counterbalanced by a surge in government spending on U.S. defence products and security products. There will be job creation at airports. As we increase security, there will be increased police forces and that kind of thing. But adding money to the military, adding money to the police and security officials, does not create wealth. Actually, it creates liability.

If the Americans, and they are apparently on the eve of doing so, go into Iraq without the support of the UN Security Council the economic consequences to the United States will be devastating. I think we can easily predict the outcome. Americans will not be able to travel abroad and successfully invest abroad. They will be forced back into the western hemisphere.

Now, of course, we have the free trade zone of the Americas. I think we can make a confident prediction that the Americans will centre their economic and political power in the western hemisphere, and leave the rest of the world to the other interests. We can see what will happen.

The countries that will benefit most from the Americans being forced economically out of the rest of the world will be China, on the one hand, which will come to dominate Southeast Asia, and Europe, on the other hand, particularly France and Germany, which will come to dominate western Europe. Even Russia stands to gain. If American products are forced out of competition worldwide because of worldwide boycotts or worldwide resistance to the sale of their products, if American investors are not encouraged abroad, then European, Russian and Chinese businessmen will fill the void.

What we are looking at, I think, is a fundamental and overwhelming change in the way the world will be 10 or 20 years from now. We will have fortress western hemisphere dominated by the United States and two other zones dominated by western Europe and China.

China, with a billion people, is the sleeping giant economically. More than that, it is a people who have a long culture of enterprise, business, and commercial risk taking. The language of commerce in Southeast Asia is not Japanese. It is not English; it is Chinese. Certainly, if Indonesia and Malaysia, and that whole archipelago out there, reject American products and investors, China will be in there to fill the void.

I really do believe that this move that is being contemplated by the United States--no matter what the reason, no matter what the justification for the reason in the eyes of the White House or in the eyes of the British Prime Minister--is going to cost their countries enormously. Just speaking of Britain, it will be excluded from Europe. Its ability to have a say in Europe will be compromised. Its ability to sell its products will be compromised. Do we think the Commonwealth will make much difference to the United Kingdom after it takes a stand on the attack on Iraq that is completely contrary to the position taken by all members of the Commonwealth? I do not think so.

I do not want to sound terribly bleak, but I do believe that what we are looking at now is the precipice of a fundamental change in global dynamics. It is just not the fact that we will be losing the United Nations as a significant voice. This will be creating a climate of rivalry which our children, and perhaps our grandchildren, will pay for because we will create three great zones of power: the western hemisphere, under the United States; western Europe, under the Europeans; and Southeast Asia, under China.

That is not the vision of the world that we saw at the end of the second world war when the United Nations was established. The United Nations was all about the people of the world trying to seek solutions to the conflicts and problems of the world collectively. Now we will have the kind of global super powers that will perhaps be more dangerous and difficult to deal with than when it was simply the Communist block versus the western nations.

There are so few benefits in this. Even the fact that the dollar is strengthening is not a benefit for Canada. We notice that on the market the dollar has been climbing and we must understand the only reason the Canadian dollar has been climbing over the past few weeks is because investors around the world have become more and more uncertain about the economic future of the United States, and so the U.S. dollar has been weakening. We have actually been climbing at the expense of the American dollar. This is actually a bad thing for us because as the Canadian dollar rises it becomes more and more difficult for us to trade with our only really significant trading partner, which is the United States.

So, we are intimately tied to what the Americans are proposing with respect to the invasion of Iraq. I wish the White House would listen to its friends because we as a government, as members in the House--most of us at any rate--have appealed to the Americans to be cautious, to listen to world opinion, to support the United Nations, and to not go down a unilateral course that would only bring, I think, despair, want and hunger on much of the world.