Paul Dewar

[Public Transit Project, February 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, last Tuesday the government announced that while a city like Ottawa is in need of funds for its transit system, the government will instead invest in the pork-barrel express.

The pork-barrel express will go from Toronto through Conservative ridings like Whitby, Oshawa, Durham, Haliburton--Kawartha Lakes--Brock to Peterborough.

No one knows the cost of the pork-barrel express, the estimated number of passengers on it, or who will operate it. It will be costly with a comparatively small number of passengers and it is not on Ontario's list of priority public transit projects.

The NDP will not be found supporting this kind of cynical, runaway political train wreck of physical policy backed by the Liberals. We will put our stock in the needs of hard-working, everyday Canadians who want more investment in all cities, child care, nurses and doctors.

While the Conservatives put pork first, we in the NDP put everyday people first.

[Business of Supply, February 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opposition motion in one sense. People want to get to the bottom of what happened with Mr. Mulroney and others.

We have a commission of inquiry that is going to be set up. We just had a budget this week, which failed Canadians and my constituents. We have the Hogwarts pork barrel express coming from Peterborough. We have no housing. Why do we have to debate this, when we have a commission of inquiry about to be set up and we know it is going to happen? Why are the Liberals spending their time on this instead of the budget?

[February 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his response, but I do not think he quite understood my question. It was about the new mission, the 1769. In committee I very specifically asked the deputy minister will we be supplying helicopters to the new mission. For his edification, the new mission to him was 1769. He said, “No, we will not be”. He is talking about the transition. I am talking about the new mission.

I would like to know from the government and from him, if the UN requested helicopters tomorrow, be it the ones we have here or perhaps ones we could lease, would the government acknowledge that and would the government supply the resources for that request?

Further to that, it is clear from everyone who is following the conflict in Darfur that we must not at any time give any indication to the government of Sudan that we are not going to resource and not going to fully implement 1769. As he knows right now there is not sufficient--

[February 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my comments tonight have to do with the situation in Darfur. It is a situation that has been debated in the House many times. I am following up on a question I asked in the House regarding the government's commitment to the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

The situation in Darfur is again getting worse. Since the beginning of this year, the United Nations has taken over the Darfur peace force, but within days of that Sudanese troops fired on a convoy of UNAMID, the African Union-UN hybrid mission. Sudanese government planes bombed rebel positions in West Darfur, turning some of those areas into no-go zones for aid workers.

Just days ago the commander of the UN-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur said more troops are urgently needed in West Darfur. The UN mission has begun after more than four years of devastation and desperation. It has taken over from a AU mission, whose limited mandate and resources failed to stabilize the situation in Sudan.

In order for the UN peacekeeping mission to successfully go ahead at its full capacity, it needs airlift and helicopters. The UN Secretary-General said the mission will be put at great risk if it does not receive the helicopters it needs. The head of the UN peacekeeping department told reporters the force needed 6 attack helicopters and 18 transport helicopters. He said, “I think it tells a sad story on the commitment for Darfur, frankly”.

I asked government officials in committee if Canada would be providing helicopters for the new UN mission. The answer was a flat no. To be precise, on November 27, 2007, I asked Mr. Edwards, then deputy minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs, “Are we providing helicopters for that mission?” He answered, “We will not be”.

So I asked the minister if he could tell the House and Canadians what the government would do for the new UN mission. He had no answer for me. On November 28 I asked the minister:

Could the minister tell the House and Canadians what the government is going to do for the new UN mission?

The minister replied:

Mr. Speaker, we are working together with the African Union and with the UN forces to ensure that this country can find the path to peace and democracy. We are working on it. The negotiations began on October 27 and we were there to promote our common values of democracy and peace.

This obviously did not address my question which was very precise and specific. I was asking if we were going to be providing more resources, specifically helicopters, to the new UN hybrid mission, the peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

I asked the minister yet again in my follow up question:

Could the minister tell the House and Canadians why the government is not going to provide support for the new UN mission? That is the question. What is the answer?

The reply from the minister was:

Mr. Speaker, we support the current activities in Africa.

I was talking about Sudan.

We are there with the other UN countries. We have a presence among the UN forces and we are working with the African Union forces to help--

[The Budget, February 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have come up with an interesting but really flaky amendment. I say flaky because “there is no there there”. It is hard for the Liberals right now, as I guess most of us appreciated Rick Mercer's video, which encapsulated where the Liberals are right now. They stood up, looked around and ran away.

This amendment shows that not only are they going to run away, but they are going to do it in a flaky way. They are going to say “if only the world was according to us, which by the way we have no opinion on”. By way of saying that, they are saying that this budget is really good but not good and they are going to stand up for it but run away from it.

The Liberals have come up with an amendment that has absolutely no substance other than finger pointing. We have to ask the Liberals and the member for Markham—Unionville why, if they are so concerned about the fiscal framework of this country, they would not put an amendment forward that actually had substance.

Finally, if the Liberals are going to continue to do this kind of flaky thing, will they please just tell Canadians that they are not interested in being in opposition and get on with the job of getting out of the way?

[Bottled Water Labelling Act, February 27th, 2008]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-514, An Act respecting the labelling of bottled water.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the western Arctic for seconding this bill.

Canadians are concerned about the quality of bottled water. In fact, 20% of Canadians depend on bottled water for their exclusive use every day. Sadly, bottled water is not regulated at present. This private member's bill would require bottled water to be labelled to ensure quality, to make sure the source is identified, and to ensure that those who are bottling the water will provide information so that if consumers need to get in touch with them, they can.

Finally, I want to give credit to Tony Clarke from the Polaris Institute, and his excellent work on this issue, and the book entitled, Inside the Bottle, which provided me with the evidence to bring forward this private member's bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Afghanistan, February 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from the government benches quite often that we do not want to repeat Rwanda and if we do not pass this motion we are going to repeat Rwanda.

Comments made by Senator Roméo Dallaire referred to the fact that at the time when we were asked for troops in Kandahar, the previous government was also asked for troops for peacekeeping missions in the Congo. That should be put on the record because we did not send anyone at the time and we all know what happened in the Congo.

If we change the mission toward peace and reconciliation, that my party has asked for in an amendment, will that somehow--

[Afghanistan, February 25th, 2008]

He knows everything.

[Afghanistan, February 25th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I guess what we have to do is change what we have been doing because it has not been working. Every report that has come forward says that security is down and corruption is up.

I want to point to the corruption right now. We hear about the schools that are being filled with children and that is true, but one of the problems, however, is that there are not many teachers in them. I have a report from Afghanistan for just last week. The fact is that teachers get paid $50 a month. How much does someone make in the opium fields? It is $20 a day.

What is happening right now is that the security problem is directly connected to the corruption problem. We have to learn in this place that not all the Taliban are the same. What is happening, because of the corruption in the government, was quoted by Sarah Chaise recently. She said that during the day they are shaken down by government officials and at night it is the Taliban.

We have to understand that we are not going to win this war through military means. We are not going to provide security by just providing more helicopters, troops and drones. We have to understand that the path to peace and to the Afghan people is to deal with corruption, poverty, and the horrible situation that most people are living in right now. That means a different form of security.

People might have different views of what security means. Security often is through protection. It does not always come through the barrel of a gun. The point was made about people being taken out to be shot or hung. It is important to note that between 1992 and 1996, tens of thousands of people died in the civil war in Afghanistan. People have not forgotten that. Scores are still being settled.

The fact of the matter is that until the wide gap that was not filled after the Bonn agreement is dealt with and the reconciliation process is not dealt with, this matter will get worse. That is why our party has put forward an amendment for a new UN mandate which would provide the possibility of peace and reconciliation.

I was in Iraq this past summer. The Iraqi people are just starting to get to that point now and many believe it is a point that should have been dealt with long before. Perhaps the government still agrees with the war in Iraq. For those of us who opposed it, we also believe that the mistakes that were made after the invasion continued the misery for the people in Iraq.

No one wants to see that happen in Afghanistan and I am sad to say that if we choose more troops, drones and helicopters, we are going to find ourselves in three years in a similar situation as to the one that is happening right now in Iraq.

[Afghanistan, February 25th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to contribute to the debate on Canada's role in Afghanistan. I stand here as the member of Parliament for my riding of Ottawa Centre and my party's foreign affairs critic.

The war in Afghanistan has touched the lives of many Canadians. It has been omnipresent in communities across the country. It is without question the most important issue by which this Parliament and our country has been challenged.

Canadians have been seized by this issue and have participated in many ways. Some have contributed by donating to help the men and women who serve in the Canadian Forces. Some contribute to grassroots aid organizations that are engaged in projects in Afghanistan. On my street, a neighbour of mine solemnly lights a candle every night in a candle lantern he has on his lawn to remember our fellow citizens who serve in Afghanistan. I see that candle burn every night and I think of Afghanistan and of Canada.

In May 2006, when the House voted on the extension of Canada's participation in the war in southern Afghanistan, I asked the following questions. What is the military objective? What are the goals? How long will it take to achieve these objectives? It has been almost two years since those questions were posed. Canadians are still waiting for answers.

It is interesting, when we consider the billions of dollars that have been spent on the military mission and Canadians are still left with those questions and others still unanswered.

Too often our government has been more concerned with winning the hearts and minds of Canadians instead of those of Afghans. It is also troubling that after this period of time, our government could not choose another path. Everyone knows that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily, that peace can only come through a political solution. To quote Seddiq Weera, an Afghan who is a senior adviser to the Karzai government:

—the war in Afghanistan cannot be won without a peace track, a political track. Why?...The political component has at least two dimensions: one is the unresolved civil war; the other is the regional factor in the conflict.

Mr. Weera went on to say that at its root it was a civil war that they would continue to watch. He said that the war in Afghanistan was ongoing:

—not...because we have 1,000 fewer troops. It's not going on because we have less coordination among allied forces. It's not going on because we have too few helicopters. It's going on because of a mixture of determinants, one of which has not been addressed. To fight poverty is quite a reasonable effort. Lots of investment and meeting the basic needs of the people is good. Improving development is very good. Improve governance, yes. But unless you create a political track, you're not going to win the war.

I should let you know in advance, Mr. Speaker, that I will be splitting my time with the member for Halifax.

“Unless you create a political track, you're not going to win the war”, is what Mr. Weera said. This void has grown and will grow wider if we extend the combat mission to 2011. In fact, Mr. Weera points to the need for the UN to achieve peace and reconciliation. That is what Canada should be fighting for, a mandate that includes all regional actors, including Pakistan, India, Iran and Russia.

Accordingly, we need to change our direction now, from a focus on military gains to a primary focus on reconciliation and peace negotiations. As was put forward by one of our former diplomats, Gerry Ohlsen, only the UN can mandate a political framework to legitimize international action and bring about peace in Afghanistan. That is what Canada had done before. That is what the world looks for Canada to do, to seek the path to peace and reconciliation. To miss this opportunity would be tragic.

The vacuum that is present right now in Afghanistan should be filled with Canadian will and knowhow. There is no question that everyone in the House, in the country, wants to help Afghans achieve peace. In fact, this motion has Canada leaving in 2011.

I believe this is a problem. Yes, we must stay to achieve stability, but the only way to get there is to change the path we have been on. We have been on the road of counter-insurgency. It is time to choose the road toward reconciliation, to provide the Afghan people with that wonderful experience of peace, order and good government.

Peacekeeping and peacekeepers have evolved. They are still relevant. We cannot achieve peace through the purchase of more helicopters and troops alone. It is time for a change in direction with a Canadian emphasis. We can make a difference if we act now. We must never give up on the people of Afghanistan. We must listen to them, right now. They need us to change what we are doing. Now is that time.

I want to quote a friend of mine who said that Canadians have a profound interest, one we purchased at great cost in the future of Afghanistan in its peace and stability. Let us work together. Let us work with the Afghans, our allies, the global community as a whole to bring peace and not a continued war to Afghanistan.

I believe that through the amendment that we have put forward we can do that. But with the government's plan for more of the same, three more years of this direction, I do not believe we can achieve those goals.

I want to finish my comments by stating that if Canada chooses to follow the path that is put forward by the government without choosing this amendment, Canada will have missed an opportunity. I believe all Canadians do not want us to miss this opportunity. I hope that Canadians will talk to their members of Parliament and let them know what they think.

In summation, the path to peace is not an easy road, but it is a road that we must follow.