Keith Martin

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, could we have unanimous consent so I can finish my speech and have five minutes for questions and comments?

[Zimbabwe, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in order to avoid the holocaust taking place in southern Africa, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take immediate action against the brutal regime of President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, including: (a) expelling the Zimbabwean High Commissioner from Canada, and asking the international community, and especially the Commonwealth members, to do likewise; (b) calling for the indefinite expulsion of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth; (c) freezing the personal assets of President Robert Mugabe and other identified members of his regime; (d) banning all international travel by Mr. Mugabe and his Ministers; (e) calling for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe; (f) leading an international mobilization of food aid for southern Africa; and (g) request the Union Nations initiate a special tribunal in the Hague to indict President Robert Mugabe and Field Marshal Perence Shiri for crimes against humanity for having organized a systematic, state-sponsored effort to murder, torture and rape innocent civilians, having created a famine that is endangering six million lives in his country and millions outside, and having ordered the massacre of 16,000 Matabele civilians in the early 1980s.

I ask for unanimous consent to save six million lives in Zimbabwe and a further seven million lives outside.

[National Defence, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at those improvements. Canadian Forces Base Kingston has the worst housing in the entire country. Right now in Downsview and Oakville our soldiers have to boil their water as we speak.

I cannot believe the minister would support such a heartless, bean-counter, woolly-headed decision.

My question is simple: Will the government reverse the decision on these rents and stop increasing soldiers' rents? Yes or no.

[National Defence, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, our military personnel have made an outstanding contribution to the war on terrorism, yet as we are sending our troops to war the government has seen fit to increase the rents on their homes by as much as $840 for somebody making less than $35,000 a year.

My question is simple. Will the government reverse this decision and not raise the rents on the homes of our military families?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, first I wish to compliment the minister for his fine speech. This is a significant departure from what has gone on before. Many parties in the House have actually tried to push the government in this direction.

The minister spoke about water. My first question deals with the Walkerton inquiry. There were a number of very constructive solutions in the Walkerton inquiry. If employed across the country, they would give clean, potable water to everybody. Will the minister pursue his colleagues' adoption of a national standard for drinking water modelled under the Walkerton inquiry findings?

Second, on the issue of governance he quite correctly said that the way to change the institutional apartheid we have actually fostered on aboriginal people is to separate them from the rest of the country. Therefore, I am asking the hon. minister if he will pursue a course of action of integration, not assimilation, whereby individual aboriginal people would have private property rights on reserves.

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my friend for the question.

With respect to Saudi Arabia, the real answer is regime modification within Saudi Arabia. There is a democratic free market system in Saudi Arabia, where there are 5,000 crown princes who have been milking the country dry, driving it into a debt situation and pocketing the moneys themselves.

It is interesting that we buy oil from Saudi Arabia and that money goes into the pockets of the 5,000 member elite in Saudi Arabia, which funds wahhabism and the madrossa schools that teach Islamic fundamentalism and the anti-American hatred that spawned the devastation one year ago on September 11. That is what is happening right now.

So we would deal with Saudi Arabia as an issue and we would love to have a democratic free market system in Iraq. That will be up to the Iraqi people. I hope we will give them the opportunity to have that choice.

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my hon. friend for the two questions.

On the first question regarding other countries that are looking to acquire biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, I am not aware of any at this time.

The second question deals with the local countries. He brings up a very important point. My view is that we do not have to invade Iraq tomorrow but maybe soon, after diplomatic initiatives have ended. While we are waiting, after we have drawn that line in the sand, we have to do what he suggests, which is to engage other Arab states and argue through the framework of regional security.

I would argue that Saddam Hussein has demonstrated that he has invaded Kuwait. He has shot off rockets and missiles to Riyadh. He has killed Kurds in northern Iraq. He has ordered mass killings of Marsh Arabs in Iraq. Based on this, it is clearly in the best interests of other Middle Eastern countries to support a multinational response to go in and identify and destroy weapons of mass destruction in the very near future.

I would also suggest and bring to the member's attention that Saudi Arabia is such a threat to regional security. We must not forget that within Saudi Arabia is wahhabism, the type of Islamic fundamentalism that Osama bin Laden follows. He and individuals responsible for the events of September 11 are Saudis. These people are there today and within them is a large pool of individuals who are potential terrorists. It really behooves us to deal with political and economic emancipation in Saudi Arabia for the benefit of regional security. In order to do that, we will need support from a number of Middle Eastern states, but we have to argue through their self-interests. I would argue that regional security and stability through dealing with Saudi Arabia and Saddam Hussein clearly is in their best interests.

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, to invade Iraq or not to invade Iraq. That is the question we are dealing with today. It is a very delicate situation. Saddam Hussein is evil, pure and simple, beginning and end but is that grounds for invasion at this point in time? That is what we are grappling with today.

It would be prudent for us to look at objectives. What are our objectives and those of Saddam Hussein? Our objectives are twofold: stability in the Middle East and the war against terrorism. It is not at this point in time a regime change. According to the UN resolutions that we support, it is the identification and destruction of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein's objectives are a little different. He wants to be the dominant player in the Persian Gulf. By all intelligence accounts, he was not involved in the attacks of September 11. In fact his goals are somewhat different from those of the terrorists. Their goals would be an attack against corrupt Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia. It is also an objective for them to change modern Islamic states into ones that are more fundamental. It is a war between Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic moderation.

Let us assume for a moment that Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction, both chemical and biological weapons. To date all intelligence, including the very eloquent British analysis, states that he does not have nuclear weapons at this time. There are certainly indications that he has been pursuing this through uranium tubing he has been trying to get in Africa. I might add there is a connection with Robert Mugabe and Mugabe's actions in the Congo where there are vast stores of uranium. Saddam Hussein is evil but he is not stupid.

Why does Saddam Hussein want weapons of mass destruction? To be the big bully in the Middle East, to scare off potential attacks by the United States, to inflict penalties and punishment against people within his own country, as he has done with the Kurds in northern Iraq, and also for larger aggressive interventions in the region which he demonstrated in Kuwait.

We may need to remove him from power, absolutely. The question is do we need to do it tomorrow? I would argue that we have some time. We have to exhaust all diplomatic possibilities before we look at the military option because we have to think of the consequences.

An attack on Iraq would do a number of things. It would jeopardize our primary objective which is the war on terrorism. If there was an attack on Iraq we could be sure Saddam Hussein would use his weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, against our troops and those of our allies.

He would also fire them off against Israel because Israel is doing intelligence operations in Iraq right now according to Jane's monthly reports. He would also attack nations that comply with the United States and us. Israel of course would respond in kind, probably with nuclear weapons, setting off an armageddon in the Middle East with massive numbers of casualties.

Also, invading Iraq would open up a third front in a very unstable region. Afghanistan is in turmoil and the situation between Palestine and Israel is also very unstable.

We have to look at other options. We have to look at some of the political solutions that need to be applied in conjunction with pushing Saddam Hussein to adopt the ultimate resolution which is a no notice, no holds barred weapons inspection anyplace, anywhere, anytime and give him a temporal end point for all this to happen, not now, but soon. The reason I say this is that we have to adopt a number of other initiatives at the same time.

First, and I say this particularly to our American friends down south, we have to be seen as a fair player in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We have to push for a Palestinian Authority that is democratic, that is not corrupt, and will work for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people need a free and secure state. Israel needs a free and secure state. Their security must be assured.

Jerusalem is a city for all people. Not only is it important to Jews and Muslims but it is also important to Christians. Israeli settlements have to get out of the West Bank.

Second, the United States and its allies cannot be seen to be blindly supporting Saudi Arabia. In fact it is Saudi Arabia that is the number one threat to Middle East security. It is ruled by the House of Ibn Saud. There are 5,000 princes. They have been draining the public coffers in an undemocratic way and they have been leaving their fellow countrymen in a state of poverty. The number of people becoming restless is growing and their poverty is enlarging, creating a fertile ground for a cataclysmic event along the lines of what we saw in Iran. Saudi Arabia is the major threat to regional security in the Middle East at this time.

America must be seen to be engaging in not only political but economic emancipation in Saudi Arabia as well as in other countries, and it must get and curry favour with other Arab nations to pursue this because if it does not there will be massive regional instability in the region. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia will pay a heavy penalty.

We also have to pursue a line in the sand for Saddam Hussein and his regime and engage the Arab states to do the same. The Arab states have a vested interest in supporting us to get weapons inspectors into Iraq. As my colleagues mentioned, Saddam Hussein has used weapons of mass destruction against his own people in Kurdistan. He fired off rockets against Riyadh, he has invaded Kuwait and the list goes on.

If we do pursue a military option down the road, which may be entirely possible and feasible, those are the preconditions. Those other actions must be addressed. We must address the Palestinian-Israeli situation. We must be seen to be a fair player in Saudi Arabia. We cannot blindly support Saudi Arabia for the oil that is there. We have to look at political and economic emancipation in that country and work with other Arab nations to that end. We must engage Arab countries to do that.

If we do go into Iraq we have to understand that it will be for the long haul. We cannot simply go in, invade and leave as we usually do, because if we do we will be leaving a power vacuum that will enable that country to descend into a perilous state. We usually go in, engage and leave without following up with the democratic institutional building blocks that have to be put in place. We are seeing that now in Afghanistan, where failure to actually engage in the political and economic development of the country is fostering the warlords, the natural state of affairs in Afghanistan. If we do not continue to engage actively in political and economic emancipation in Afghanistan, we will see the warlords fight it out and Afghanistan will go back to being the backwater that it has been for decades. It too will be a failed state along the lines of Somalia.

In the end, if we were to go into Iraq it would set an interesting precedent for a number of other profound tragedies that exist in our world today. I mentioned to my hon. friend from Davenport that in Zimbabwe six million people, the same number of people who died in the Holocaust, will potentially die in the next six months from a famine politically engineered by Robert Mugabe, who is using food as a weapon to kill half his population. The people who did not and do not support him will be killed by their leader depriving them of food. Will we intervene to help those people?

Are we going to intervene in the Congo, where two million people have died in the last two years and no one has said anything? Will we intervene in Liberia, where a man by the name of Charles Taylor, with impunity, supports regional instability in the area and thugs such as Foday Sanko, who has been involved with the chopping off of the limbs of innocent men, women and children, not to kill them but to terrorize them. Charles Taylor is a criminal like Robert Mugabe is a criminal like Mobutu Sese Seko was a criminal. Are we going to intervene?

My time is up, Mr. Speaker, but I hope that our country engages the Americans to take a larger, broader look at regional stability, not only in the Middle East but in other countries. We have an exciting opportunity to use this. The military is one option which we may have to use and we will support it if necessary after we exhaust all diplomatic possibilities.

A firm line in the sand has to be drawn with Saddam Hussein. We must be firm in our resolve to keep it that way in the interests of security, not only for us and the United States but also for the security of all people in the Middle East, especially the Iraqi people.

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, our foreign affairs minister, whom I respect a great deal, has said that he would support Canada's acceptance and participation in a military intervention with the United States if all diplomatic initiatives had been exhausted because Iraq would pose an imminent threat to regional stability.

Would my friend on the other side apply that same reasoning to Canada supporting an active, multinational intervention in Zimbabwe, where six million people will die in the next six months as a direct result of Robert Mugabe's actions? What about in the Congo, where two million people have died? What about in Angola, where people are dying right now as a result of a famine, or in Liberia where Charles Taylor chops off the limbs of children just to terrorize the population? Would the hon. member support an act of multinational intervention in those countries where the magnitude of suffering is far greater?

[Committees of the House, June 17th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs for his kind comments and also draw attention to the fine work done by the previous secretary of state for Africa and Latin America. I also wish to thank Ambassador Rishchynski who is widely respected and has an extraordinary vision of what is taking place.

I would like to impress on the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs that the use of import-export permits on the precursor chemicals can be instituted easily by countries of the world. If we were to do that we would not only be able to track these chemicals to where they are going, but by doing so would find out who exactly is producing the illegal drugs.

That can be instituted very easily. The UN would help. It has some good ideas. Our European counterparts must deal with this too because all of us are responsible for this terrible situation. The use of import-export permits are easily implemented, cheap to do and provide extraordinary intelligence in enabling us to determine the producers of these illegal drugs. I wish to thank the minister for his kind consideration of this important matter.