Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to stand here to speak to this issue today. It is also a great privilege to be in the House in general.
As this is my first speech, I hope I will be allowed to thank my constituents in Burnaby South who elected me for the second time. It was a tough-fought campaign, but I am happy to be here to serve my constituents.
Burnaby stands at the centre of what I do in the House and it has an important place in this debate. Over 100 languages are spoken in Burnaby. It is probably one of the most diverse places in the entire world, in Canada definitely. I have meetings every week with people who have come from four corners of the globe. There is a huge refugee population in Burnaby. This motion specifically talks about refugees and that is an important component of what we are doing here in this Parliament. We are making sure that refugees are properly taken care of.
We have to be careful to represent the views of Canadians, and this debate is an important part of that. Most Canadians, and most of my constituents, would say that peace is a central component of our foreign policy, that peace should be the main driver of our foreign policy. That is why this debate is so important to us here today.
We know what the Conservatives think about our place in the world because we had 10 years of their government. This debate is really about defining what the new government will do for Canada, what will be our face to the world. The decisions that we make with respect to this mission will tell the world what Canada's new position will be and how the world should think of us. We in the NDP hope that the new government will be one of the main drivers of peace in the world and will get us back to our role.
The Prime Minister has said that Canada is back, but Canada is not back yet. We are not back to the point of previous Liberals like Nobel Peace Prize winner Lester Pearson, who was known for bringing peace to the world. We are not there yet. We are not at the point where the previous government was, but we are not back to where we should be and that is a driver of peace in the world.
The parliamentary secretary put forward an interesting invitation for us. He asked us to reconsider this motion. I have been looking over the Conservative amendment and the Liberal motion and they both have merit worth considering. The government's motion calls on the House to expand our mission in Iraq and have more boots on the ground. The second component of the motion calls for the withdrawal of the CF-18s and the third calls for more investment in humanitarian assistance. From my reading of the Conservative amendment it asks to reverse the decision to withdraw the CF-18s and then to limit humanitarian relief.
That is really what we are debating here. We are debating whether we should amend the Liberal proposal with the Conservative amendment. I have looked at this and I think we can safely reject the Conservative amendment to the motion. We did not think the jets should have been there in the first place and we definitely do not want them to go back.
It is disappointing that the minister did not wait for a vote to make that decision. That was raised here earlier in question period. We were promised a debate and a vote on this issue but the decision seems to have already been made. As somebody who tries to defend the institutions of Parliament, I think that does not seem to be the way we are supposed to work here. The minister should have carefully considered both sides of the situation, waited for the vote in the House, and then made the decision. Perhaps he is not used to how this place is supposed to work and that is why he made this early mistake.
With respect to the planks of the main motion, expanding the mission to put more boots on the ground is really the core of what we have been discussing here and something I cannot seem to get a straight answer on. We hear examples from the other side of the House about how we have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with people in other wars, but that is combat, that is us shooting at other people and people shooting at us. That is about killing other people and being killed. That is a combat mission. It is unclear as to how the government views this mission. We hear about training people and marking targets for other bombing runs and those kind of things. That sounds like forays into enemy territory where our soldiers would be at risk.
Of course if they are fired at, they will fire back. To me that is combat, otherwise there would be no shooting at people and no getting shot at. It is very unclear and the government needs to clarify. As the debate continues on for the rest of the day, I hope we will get that clarification as to whether this is a combat mission or not. That would be crucial to us deciding whether or not to change our minds and perhaps consider a different approach to this motion.
I believe that withdrawing the CF-18s is a good idea. They should not have been there in the first place.
Increasing humanitarian assistance is a key proposal. I hope that if the Liberals decided to entirely withdraw the troops from the region that they would always consider sending humanitarian assistance because the way that peace moves forward is by wealthy nations like ours investing in and helping people in troubled areas.
On balance, I have not heard anything here that would convince me that this is a good thing to do for either the Conservative motion or the Liberals' main motion.
We are talking a lot about Iraq. I think the Liberals have a right to be proud about Mr. Chrétien's decision back in the 1990s to not follow the U.S. and the U.K. into Iraq in a fighting capacity. However, right after that, Canadians put a huge amount of effort, money, and troops into Afghanistan. A lot of us saw that as a bait and switch. We do not go into Iraq and the Liberals get all the kudos for not doing so, and rightly reinforcing the idea of Canada as a peaceful nation, but then going to Afghanistan almost covertly and almost tricking Canadians into thinking that these two things were somehow not connected. I feel that this might be what is happening here as well, that they will withdraw a few jets but then greatly increase the number of troops and send them to Iraq. I do not feel like we are getting the whole story.
I asked a question earlier today of the parliamentary secretary about casualty counts. It is uncomfortable to talk about people dying but we need to have an estimate. The defence minister said that there was an increased risk. An increased risk to whom and by how much? What is the risk that I as a parliamentarian, representing the people of Burnaby South, have to consider? When I stand up to vote yes or no to this motion I have to answer to my constituents. If I said that I changed my mind and I voted for this motion, they would ask if I had all of the information I needed, to which I would have to say no. I do not have any. I do not know what the exit strategy is here. I do not know the constraints of this operation. I do not know whether we will have a lot of casualties or none. I do not know how much this would cost. I know that some of those things have to remain secret. However, I think the Liberals could divulge more information about this, and they are not doing that.
The last thing that is not in this motion is increased aid for soldiers who are returning and for veterans. My wife teaches at Douglas College, which is a good educational institution. A lot of soldiers who return there do so to get more education and go to her classes. They have been traumatized by what they have seen in these regions and suffer from PTSD yet there is very little support for these veterans. What I would like to see in the motions and the government actions going forward is a firm commitment for more resources for returning soldiers. If we in the NDP cannot stop the Liberals from what we think is a mistake in action, at least we can call for more assistance when these soldiers return to Canada.
Therefore, I will be opposing this motion and, unless I hear something very different from the other side of the House, I will be opposing the Conservative amendment.
