Bosnia  Yes they are all of Slavic background but they are of three religious backgrounds. There are Muslims, there are Orthodox and there are Catholics. It is very different and they feel very strongly and are very emotional. In Drvar when the Croats attacked the Serbs who were returning home it can be seen why.

Eid-Ul-Fitr  The end of Ramadan is celebrated with Eid-Ul-Fitr, one of the most joyous occasions in the Muslim calendar. Over one billion Muslims worldwide, including nearly 500,000 here in Canada, use Eid-Ul-Fitr to give prayers of thanks, celebrate with friends and family, and rejoice in the love of God and of course Islam.

Supply  The God of the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve is not the God the Reform Party member might invoke. It is not the God that certain of our Muslim colleagues or some of our colleagues from other religious denominations might call on. It is therefore not our place, as parliamentarians, to try to limit debates to religious considerations given that religion is a question of pluralism.

Supply  I am quite convinced that the definition I hold, which adds that further dimension to marriage, is one that is held by the majority of Canadians; not only by those of the Christian faith, but also by those of other faiths. I think of the Sikhs, the Muslims, the Hindus. They all have a relationship of marriage which they clearly understand to be the union of a man and a woman. We err terribly by even suggesting that possibly some court could change that definition.

Supply  Speaker, the hon. member should know that when a man with more than one wife applies for immigration status in Canada, he is disqualified by this motion from being called a family. If a Muslim family from the Middle East or anywhere else applies to come to Canada with more than one wife, the hon. member is basically asking them to drop the other wives at home, break up the family and come back here.

Foreign Affairs  Was the secretary of state able to raise the issue of the arrest of the leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan?

Supply  It has happened for the last 700 to 800 years, since the Ottoman empire was formed and resettlement back and forth of Christians and Muslims has taken place. Does my hon. colleague agree with me that we should recognize that the ethnic cleansing is not only occurring today but it occurred back in the early 1900s when the Ottoman empire was falling apart and was disengaging?

Supply  As this happened different ethnicities mixed within Europe, specifically in the areas of the Balkans. The Kosovar people are basically Muslim while the Serbian population is Christian. This seems to be the nucleus of the conflict. Those of us in Canada think this as kind of absurd. The object of the exercise is that we can all live together in spite of our cultural differences and religious beliefs, but apparently that is not so in that part of the world.

Kosovo  Hopefully, when peace is restored, the security of people living in this troubled region of Europe will be assured regardless of ethnic origin, regardless of whether they are a majority or a minority, regardless of whether they are Christian, Muslim or of any other religious belief. I am glad to share my time with the member for Peterborough.

Kosovo  The information available and the intelligence gathered indicate that President Milosevic is engaged in wholesale efforts to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of the large majority of Albanian muslims. He is doing so in the most vile manner, utilizing barbaric methods that defy imagination and contravene the conventions of war. The result of these atrocities has led the member states of NATO to do all possible to protect the Kosovars and prevent this tyrant from attaining his goals.

Kosovo  No matter where we live in Canada we have watched on television and we have read in the newspapers the horrors and the atrocities, the violations of human rights that have taken place in Kosovo against Muslim Albanians. In the past two weeks in my riding of Vancouver East I have been overwhelmed by the response that I have received over the telephone, by mail, e-mail, faxes and from people I have met on the street.

Kosovo  How would the west respond, for instance, if China were to carry out air strikes against an Indian government that was fighting to prevent a Muslim majority province such as Jammu-Kashmir from seceding, or if one country were to intervene in an other country's internal debates about issues of human rights or ethnic cleansing? In Serbia, we are dealing with a better armed and more militarily sophisticated group than the Bosnian Serbs.

Kosovo  Some of these people came to Canada to get away from the clutches of Mr. Milosevic. We have church groups, Christian and Muslim, that have strong ties over there. As the House can imagine, the views of these Canadians who share a common region of origin are often very different. I am glad that Canada is not a tribal society.

Young Offenders Act  It is the old car with a new coat of paint. Why are we taking this long and tedious approach to doing nothing? The Muslims have a saying that the elephant laboured and brought forth a mouse. That seems to be what is happening with the new act.

Return To Canada Of Karim Noah  Since Karim is a boy and his father is a Muslim, under Egyptian law, the child must be raised in the Muslim faith. Ms. Tremblay's son Karim was baptised in the Catholic faith, which is a serious breach under Egyptian law. That is why her lawyer suggested she should try to have her son's baptism annulled: to increase her chances of convincing a court in Egypt to give her custody of her son.