Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on behalf of my colleagues. I want to thank the minister and other members of the government for providing us with some information and background about this important mission and for giving us the opportunity to debate the motion this afternoon.
We have all been watching the events in the Middle East over the last several months with a great deal of not only interest but, indeed, profound concern for the fate of the people of the Middle East. If there has been one significant transformation in international politics over the last several years, it has been the realization that what happens to people within states is every bit as important as what happens to governments.
This transformation of international law has not been speedy and it has not been without problems and challenges, but its significance cannot be underestimated. The Security Council, in passing the two resolutions, one which called for the freezing of assets of Gadhafi and his family and taking other economic sanctions against Libya and, second, the agreement I think many people found to be surprising, given the membership on the Security Council, to establish a no-fly zone, is only really imaginable if we realize the point, which I will emphasize once more. What happens to people within states and around the world is every bit as important, indeed more important, than what happens to states and governments.
The so-called convention of 1648, the Westphalia convention, which says that sovereignty trumps everything, that national governments are the end game and that reasons of state will always prevail over other considerations, is, as we used to say in law school, no longer good law. That just is not the way it works. The way it works is that governments have responsibilities to their citizens and that the citizens of the world have some degree of responsibility for one another in the challenges they face.
This is not a loosey-goosey concept. This is not a concept that has no parameters or no particular meaning. I am very proud of the fact that the Liberal leader, the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, participated in the discussion that was led by the former foreign minister of Australia, Gareth Evans, in advising initially the Canadian government and then the United Nations on how to begin to create some new rules of the game, some new procedures which would give this responsibility to protect some real meaning.
It is important to emphasize that the responsibility to protect, which was ultimately adopted by the General Assembly in 2005 and which was, despite considerable controversy and debate that it might not persist for very long, reaffirmed by the General Assembly in 2009, really comprises several different elements. It is, first, a responsibility to prevent crises and harm, to do whatever we can within our means to prevent crises from happening. It is also a responsibility to react to crises as they take place and then it is a responsibility to rebuild.
These are not consistently applied. The world is not a perfect place. There are many instances which other members can raise. My colleague from Scarborough Centre has raised other examples where we ask about situations over here or in other countries.
Many commentators have made observations. I can refer people publicly to the one very eloquent cri de coeur from Mr. Rex Murphy, who we see on CBC television from time to time. He made a very eloquent comment on the fact that this so-called responsibility to protect doctrine was not consistently applied and therefore it did not mean anything. With great respect to Mr. Murphy, I think he is wrong. It does mean something.
The first thing it means is that we expect governments to protect their citizens. This is the test that Colonel Gadhafi has failed. Not only has Colonel Gadhafi failed to protect his citizens, but after 45 years in power we have had many opportunities over the years to see Colonel Gadhafi in action. We have had an opportunity to see the damage and harm that he can bring. We know that he was certainly an instigator of the Lockerbie bombing. We know that he was actively participating in the creation of Libya as a nuclear power.
We know that he responded to certain pressures from the international community and agreed to change his ways in certain instances. He abandoned, apparently to the satisfaction of the IAEA, any nuclear ambitions which he may have. We also know full well that he took certain measures with respect to directly sponsoring terrorist activities in other countries.
But the fact is that Colonel Gadhafi is still a dictator, meaning that he was not elected and he took power illegally by destroying the monarchy in Libya. He has been in power for over 40 years with the support of the Libyan army and, like any dictator, he rules by oppressing the population, killing anyone who opposes him, torturing people who have different points of view and insisting on as much power as possible for himself and his family. That is an absolutely corrupt way to run a country, but as we say, the world is not a perfect place. We know that there are dictators in the world who do not honour their moral, political and humanitarian obligations. It is difficult to say, but there are heads of state and situations that we do not like, that we want to change and that the world has tried to change. That is the case with Colonel Gadhafi.
As we have watched these transformations taking place in the Middle East, we saw the dramatic change in Tunisia, the dramatic change in Egypt, the demonstrations that are still under way in a number of countries, and many people will try to figure out why this is happening and how it is happening, but undoubtedly it came to Libya.
It came to Libya in a way that surprised many people and apparently certainly surprised Colonel Gadhafi. It was a movement of people that obviously had some military support from an army that was clearly divided and which led to the capture by that rebel army of a number of cities, a number of towns, many of which some of us had not heard of or heard from since we knew the battle names of the Second World War. When I saw on the news one night that Tobruk had been captured, one had a certain sense of historical resonance with respect to what that name and that battle signified.
It was Colonel Gadhafi's determination to take the life of his own people that led to the decision of the international community to respond and that provides us with the justification for the response.
Our own view is that this mission cannot be endless. It has to be focused. I am a little troubled by what I heard from the minister today about the ambiguity with respect to what the overall purpose of the mission is. I can say to the government that we will support the motion. We will support the determination. In fact we have supported for a considerable time the need for the world to be able to respond to situations such as the one we are facing in Libya.
I do not think any of us feels there is a military solution to this conflict. We obviously have to use hard power, which we are now using, in an effort to create the space for soft power to do some of its work. We need to continue to encourage negotiations. We need to encourage back channels. We need to encourage a political engagement.
I would say very strongly that we encourage the government in increasing its diplomatic capacity and diplomatic engagement in its effort to bring peace to a region which has not known a great deal of peace. In fact the peace that it has known is the peace of repression. The peace we would like to see is the peace of justice, the peace of democracy. That continues to be a major objective of foreign policy.
