Madam Speaker, it is my great pleasure to join in the debate on this very important subject. I would like to again thank the hon. member for Ahuntsic for bringing this issue forward and to thank my colleagues on this side of the House who participated in the discussions. They will be participating again this afternoon.
On March 20 I informed the House that I intended to present again the motion which I presented last year. The letter was dated March 20, 1996 but I have not received an official reply on the wording of the resolution.
However, last year when I presented my motion, I consulted many members of Parliament, including the hon. member who presented the motion today. I was hoping that I would receive the same courtesy, that he would consult me and the communities involved so that we could have a non-partisan motion which could be supported by all parties. I am very disappointed that the hon. member played a cheap trick at the last moment at nine o'clock on Sunday night when he announced his intention to put this motion.
Had I been informed a week earlier we would have participated and made a truly respectable motion of which everyone in Canada could be proud.
I hope the House will do it again next year. All three parties can come together because this is a non-partisan issue. This is not an issue for the Bloc Quebecois, Reform, NDP or the Liberals. This is an issue that affects each and every human being in this land. I would venture to say it involves every human being on this globe.
I wish to take a moment to read a letter from the Prime Minister addressed to the Canadian-Armenian community last weekend. It states:
I am honoured to extend my greetings and sincere best wishes to the members of Canada's Armenian community as they mark the 81st anniversary of the Armenian tragedy in 1915.
The government and the people of Canada deplore the death of a great number of Armenians as a result of the war which brought about an end to the Ottoman Empire, and we extend our sympathy to the Armenian community.
Canada has been immeasurably enriched by many displaced Armenians who came to our shores, and by the contribution their descendants have made since. It is my profound hope that the memories of the past will serve to remind us all of the importance of tolerance and respect for diversity, and the historic attachment of these principles that has made Canada a beacon of hope for people the world over.
Please accept my best wishes on this solemn occasion.
I would also like to share with the House part of the message sent by Senator Dole, the U.S. presidential candidate in the upcoming November election. The message is dated April 22 and reads as follows:
Though April 24 is the day singled out to mark this tragedy, during the Genocide of 1915 some 1.5 million Armenians were subjected to a systematic extermination through a policy of deportation, torture, starvation and massacre. I join with the Armenian-American community in mourning the dead and recalling the suffering and sacrifice of the victims.
This issue is extremely important, especially to Canadians of Armenian origin. After all, they were one of the minorities that suffered in 1915 along with Kurds, Arabs, Greeks, Cypriots and many nationalities that were subjects of the Ottoman Empire at the time.
Since then, as the expression goes, crime not condemned is crime encouraged. Since then many crimes took place starting with the holocaust, Cyprus, Burundi, Cambodia, South Africa, Rwanda. It is important that we designate a week to commemorate all these crimes against humanity.
I am sure that each and every member of this House shares this concern. The question is how to do it so that it best for everybody. That is where the opposition lacks. As I said earlier, that was not a very nice thing to do because they made it as a partisan issue rather than a humanitarian, human rights issue.
What should be done? Individual members of Parliament could write letters to the Turkish government's representative here in Ottawa or they could ask Turkey to recognize the genocide, over and above what other countries will be doing hopefully in the next few years, and saying that crimes of genocide do not pay. Turkey has to admit its mistakes, like Germany has done, and start negotiations with the republic of Armenia to solve this problem. If there is restitution to be paid, I am sure it will have to pay so it can address the issue that will help us to overcome the difficulties we are facing today.
Speaking of Nazi crimes at Nuremberg, American Judge Robert Jackson said: "These crimes", referring to the holocaust, "are unacceptable". One of the reasons why he said they were unacceptable was not because of the number of victims but rather people came together to plot the extermination of a nation.
That is exactly what happened in 1915. The cabinet made a decision to slaughter each and every Armenian living in that Ottoman Empire. The pretext was the first world war. What a fantastic excuse. Everybody had an excuse during the war to kill and eliminate any minority. Armenian subjects were drafted into
the army. They were sent forward to fight the allies and they were shot in the back.
On the other hand Armenians joined the allied forces. They were called little allies. They hoped that when they did their job with the allies to defeat the central powers, which they had, Armenia would become an independent country. Fortunately Armenia became independent in 1918 but Armenian independence was short lived because of international politics.
At that time the western powers played politics with the fundamental issue of human rights. I come back again to my friends in opposition, do not play politics with these kinds of issues. It backfires on everybody and hurts everybody.
I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Saint-Denis. In conclusion, I want to repeat what I said last time when I presented motion 282. When speaking of my visit to Der-zor I said the following:
Even today when one who goes there and puts his hand in the sand, one has to go down only six inches to pick up bones and the remains of human beings. The river running through Der-zor is a very historical scene to Canadians of Armenian origin and many other Armenians throughout the world because we saw pictures of bodies in that river in the same way we saw pictures of bodies floating last year in Rwanda. I saw that river, I walked in that river and I remember the past, 1915.
I conclude my comments with the these words. Unless we learn from the past we are condemned to repeat it. I hope we are united in this House to condemn the past so we do not repeat the slaughter, discrimination and genocide.
