Joe Volpe

[Petitions, February 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the efforts of B'nai Brith Canada, I have the pleasure of presenting a third petition this week in the House. This one has been signed by several hundred people.

The petition, pursuant to Standing Order 36, draws to the attention of the House of Commons the long-standing, unrequited international issue of Eli Cohen.

Mr. Cohen was tortured, unjustly tried, convicted and hanged by a Syrian military court without legal representation and despite international protest. All his family asks is for the return of his remains for a proper burial as per the redemption of hostages tenet so central to the Jewish faith.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to use all reasonable means but not excluding the application of economic sanctions and severing of diplomatic ties with Syria in order to cause a return of Mr. Cohen's remains for a proper burial in Israel.

[Middle East, February 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday night in Toronto, I joined more than 2,000 fellow citizens connected live via satellite with hundreds in the Israeli border town of Sderot, thanks to the efforts of the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto.

The objective was twofold: first, to show solidarity with the men and women who, together with their families, are prepared to endure ongoing physical and psychological trauma to live according to the values and tenets that have become iconic in western democratic societies; and second, to draw attention to the ongoing terror visited upon them by outlaw organizations, such as Hamas in Gaza.

In the last seven years, Hamas has rained 8,000 missiles and rockets upon Sderot and its citizens, which is more than three missiles per day, every day of the year, and with impunity.

The citizens of Sderot are fighting Hamas with their courage. Will our government match it with a public condemnation of Hamas' criminal activity?

[Afghanistan, February 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to agree with some of the objectives of my colleague, and I want to be very specific.

He mentioned some of the successes. Those successes are the rationale that he says put us there and why we should continue to be there. Since we are focusing on schools, on hospitals and on roads, I am wondering whether he could tell us, at least in Kandahar province, how many schools we are going to build, how many teachers we are going to train, how many roads we are going to build, how many bridges we are going to construct, how many farms we are going to initiate, what the drainage system is like and what we are going to do.

Does he envisage the government coming forward and giving us a plan of all of these things which are not military secrets?

[Afghanistan, February 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize sort of a very faint compliment there and I will accept it for what it is.

If the member wants to score a point, let me underscore the point. If the chairman of that panel responded to a question relative to his suggestion that he had already had these views before he wrote the report, his answer would be that if one asks the same question then one gets the same answer.

What I propose today is this. Why do we not ask all the other questions that have not been asked? If we can get an answer from the government on all of those, then we can support the government. It is as simple as that.

[Afghanistan, February 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I can be very specific about the reasons why we went there in the first place. I happened to be in cabinet when the request came in to go into the kind of mission, which the parliamentary secretary is now defending and that we are debating.

The answer then was, no, that we wanted to be in a development cycle. We wanted to ensure we would put funds to use that would be in the main part of the reconstruction of Afghanistan, or the development of that part of Afghanistan. We did not recognize we had the military capacity to make an impact that would justify making a decision. In other words, we did not want to set ourselves up to fail. Rather we wanted to set ourselves up to succeed, where we could succeed.

When that side of the House came to government, the very first thing it did was change the mission, but call it an extension, and it has become a much more military mission. It is the government's right to make those kinds of decisions. I do not disagree. I did not vote for going in, but this is where we make those decisions and that is fine.

When the member asks me what I think about the development of some of the other areas and issues that are important, I agree with it. Yes, I would like to make an impact on Afghanistan as in every other part of the world.

I will finish off with this. Last night I was at a function where people talked about the clash of ideologies. I would like to have our ideology accepted by everybody. I am not sure one would do it at the point of—

[Afghanistan, February 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to participate in this debate. I have written a couple of pieces on this. Those who are interested can read them on my website.

I noted yesterday that the government launched this debate by putting forward the Minister of National Defence. Clearly the debate is really about a military mission; it is not about anything else. Otherwise the government would have led off with the Prime Minister or with the Minister of Foreign Affairs because this would have been a truly Canadian mission.

Let me underscore the fact we are debating a motion that has become a Canadian motion in view of the fact that the government has borrowed so heavily on the Liberal amendment to present for debate. However, this is not a Canadian mission. It is a NATO mission in which Canada participates. Our focus should be addressing the questions that Canadians everywhere are asking about the way we are approaching the Canadian role in this NATO mission. We should be asking the questions that would truly address the concerns of Canadians such as, why are we there? We need to justify that. However, we cannot discuss, as my colleague has done so eloquently, issues that are not related to the military component of that mission.

The government clearly has one objective, and that is to debate the status quo, period. It has said that it wants to extend the status quo, nothing else. To confuse the issue for everyone, it put together a panel of experts, who have a variety of experience, although I am not sure if Afghanistan was one of them. They have acquired a lot of expertise and presented a report upon which the government has based all of its arguments to stay the course and to expend more energy, resources and personnel from Canada.

After 477 interviews, submissions and presentations, the panel could not come up with one reason for having Canada in Afghanistan, one reason that we had not heard from all types of spins in the previous couple of years, one reason that would justify, for all Canadians, expending $6.1 billion to date in a military mission and $1.2 billion in aid. I do not suggest that the reasons were not there. I suggest that the basis for discussion is not there. Why is it not there? If we are really discussing what Canada should do in Afghanistan, perhaps we would examining what the panel report told us.

The panel has said that for every dollar in development aid, $12 are spent on military expenditures. For every dollar on development aid, only 15¢ is spent on signature Canadian aid programs. Therefore, it is important for everyone to understand that if we are to have a serious debate on Afghanistan, we should take a look at who sets the objectives, who has established the goals, who has established the performance criteria upon which continuing presence by all NATO partners will be validated and by what measures we will then judge the success of that mission.

I do not think this is about supporting the troops. We cannot allow ourselves to be blindfolded by this kind of rhetoric. Of course we all support the troops. We ask them to go there and give their lives.

What is it really about? Is it about transforming a society, as I hear from some of the debates? What society are we trying to transform? Is it the tribal society that has existed for millennia? Is it maybe the ideologically driven society of the day which happens to be Islamist or jihadist? Is that who we are fighting? Is it the rural society that is established in an elevation on this part of the world that begins at 4,000 metres and goes up? Is it a society that is already geographically and politically isolated from virtually everybody else, including its immediate adjacent countries, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and even China?

I do not think the basis for the debate, the expert panel's report, demonstrated an understanding of all the dynamics. If it could not, I do not know how we could expect the government to understand it. For example, one of the issues raised by the panel was we needed to depend much more on the diplomacy that had to emerge and developed in that area, especially given the circumstances in Pakistan, and I agree. However, that is all it said.

It does not say, for example, that 70% of all the material and resources, human and physical, that we bring into Afghanistan has to go through Pakistan and that we have to build a partnership with the country, the like of which we have not yet done. It does not say, for example, that 40,000 Talibans, and I call them guerillas, or they can be called terrorists or insurgents, are in the border states adjacent to Pakistan. Only about 20,000 Talibans are on the Afghan side of the border.

It does not explore, for example, the contributions made to disrupt the order and stability of the area by Iran, Saudi Arabia and by the north African countries that are interested in expelling many of their militants and sending them off to another part of the world eliminating the immediacy of the problem for themselves. They are all players in that part of the world. The panel says that 40,000 Pakistan Talibans are refurbishing, renewing and re-energizing the Afghan Talibans, and we know nothing about them. There is no discussion.

Billions of dollars are going in from donor nations to compete with our hundreds of millions of dollars. I would have liked to have seen a discussion about alternatives. Of course we want to be there to ensure we protect our interests. We want to know what those interests are. Is it, for example, the issue of ensuring that every child in Afghanistan gets a proper education? Who can say, no? Tell me how we do that when we spend $12 on guns and soldiers for every $1 we spend on development aid. That is just the Canadian contribution.

If someone wants to speak to me about the safety of our troops, please look at the report. See if the report can find an explanation for why the incidence of casualties is more than double among Canadians than it is among any other participant that has more than 2,000 troops in the area. Please tell us why the number 1,000 appeared magically out of the air. If 1,000 more troops could solve the problems of the world, I would be first guy to volunteer. The fact is General Hillier has said on two separate occasions, that he cannot get soldiers and that we should reform our immigration system so we can bring people in to fight for us so they could then accelerate their application for immigration. Just the other day he said that we needed at least 2,500 more troops.

I think we have a moving target. That is okay. I just want to know what the performance criteria are for judgment when the question comes up again in the House. I want to know whether we have explored the alternatives to long term solutions such as to revert back to a robust peacekeeping role that will then transfer itself into a greater role for the United Nations to bring in all the people who play in that area.

My colleague said that we should give it an Afghan face, as we did not many years ago in Cambodia when we brought in the Khmer Rouge, an especially murderous regime. We need a solution that is long term and lasting. I hope this debate will cause that to surface.

[Petitions, February 25th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 it is my pleasure and privilege to present a petition signed by several thousand Canadians in the greater Toronto area on the issue of abducted Israeli soldiers in the summer of 2006.

As we know, three soldiers, Gilad Schalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were abducted by Hamas and Hezbollah. We are all familiar with the events of 2006.

The petitioners call upon Parliament, through the government, to use all reasonable means, including economic sanctions and breaking of ties with those organizations responsible for the abductions and the governments that support them, in order to bring about a safe and swift return of these young men to their families.

While I am on my feet, I have an additional 1,070 signatures on a similar petition from the great citizens of Eglinton—Lawrence who also call upon the government to use all the means available to it to ensure that those same three young men, Gilad Schalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, abducted by Hamas and Hezbollah, be returned to their families and that Parliament employ whatever means available to it, whether it be economic sanctions, breaking of ties with those organizations responsible for the abductions--we know that they have already been declared to be terrorist organizations--and the governments that support them.

All those petitioners rely on Parliament to ensure that these soldiers, who represent the great democratic values around the world, be returned safely and swiftly to their families.

[Canada Transportation Act, January 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I very much enjoyed the remarks of the member from Quebec, who addressed the economic situation of Ontario from a particular angle. This is important to us as we are facing an economic crisis. I agree with him that the government should be doing even more. He discussed how members from both sides of this House could work together to resolve the problem. While this problem is really a western Canadian one, it does impact the economy of our country as a whole.

I also appreciated that the member spoke, not as a Quebecker, but as a Canadian who cares about Quebec and Ontario as well. I am originally from Ontario. I am very aware of the challenges it is facing today. It is important that pressure be brought to bear on the government and the members of this House regarding the economic situation of Ontario.

It is the engine of Canada from the point of view of manufacturing. It is a very important generator of lumber, lumber industries and secondary products, perhaps not as large as Quebec and British Columbia but these sectors are very important for Ontario.

I share with him the concern he has expressed on our behalf, that the government needs to be much more implicated in the economic crisis of the day being faced by industries in the manufacturing sector, in the lumber sector and in other sectors as well, but I will only name those.

Has he tabulated for us some questions about specific themes that he thinks the government should present to the House, to Parliament and to all Canadians or does he want me to do it for him? If he does, I will be pleased to do it immediately after question period.

[Canada Transportation Act, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the memory that he had about us being in government. Those were good days. I gather that is what he was dying to say, but he has not said it, because we had a really good relationship at the time.

I recall that at the time I said to him, yes, when we are dealing with oranges we will deal with oranges and when we are dealing with apples we will slice apples. Today we are in the business of slicing apples because we are talking about a commercial relationship between shippers/producers and railways.

On the other issue, we are talking about programs that had to do with the enhancement of local communities. For that, we had a different program. I am glad that the member was at least being attentive enough to be able to highlight through me to the minister and the government that there is another need that is still to be addressed.

Good governments are not in the habit of washing their hands and deferring to someone else. What they typically do is thank the member for raising that issue. If the member wants it dealt with properly, all I can ask the member to do is encourage all of his colleagues and all of those who would associate themselves with his party to do the right thing in the next election and vote for all of those who are associated with the member for Eglinton—Lawrence. They will see that good things will happen.

[Canada Transportation Act, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his comments. He wanted to highlight the rapport among the members on the committee, who work together to improve the Canadian condition, both commercially and socially. He made a reference to another bill, in which the circumstances were completely different from the current market conditions.

As a member of Parliament and as a man, I have never capitulated to the Senate. I think that the authority of the House of Commons is the most important one in the entire country. The will of the country is expressed in the House of Commons. I think that the voice of the people is the voice of God. It is vox populi, vox dei. Here, we talk about the voice of God. So, it is the only House in which jurisdiction is always respected.

I would like to thank the Bloc member who pointed out that members on the committee worked together to come up with a bill that can be supported universally. I would like to thank him for his work. He is a very good colleague.