Speaker:   I will now call the House to order. We will proceed at this time with prayers.

Speaker:   Before proceeding with the Order Paper, the Chair wishes to inform members that we have a new page with us today who has not previously been introduced. She is Kate Smolne from Porter Creek Secondary School, and I’d ask members to join me in welcoming Kate to the service of this House.

Speaker:   We will proceed at this time with the Order Paper.

Tributes.

Ms. Duncan:   Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Yukon placer industry — the family farms of the north. Mr. Speaker, placer mining isn’t just a job; it’s a way of life. On December 16, 2002, an announcement by the Minister of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to unilaterally phase out the Yukon placer authorization, a successful made-in-Yukon solution that effectively balanced responsible mining and the environment. Today, Yukoners join together in indicating how unacceptable this decision by the Minister of Department of Fisheries and Oceans was and is. As we work together as Yukoners, as the Yukon government, as Members of the Yukon Legislature, First Nation governments and most especially the placer mining industry, I rise to pay tribute to all the individuals working to have this decision changed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. McRobb:   We, too, in the official opposition wish to pay tribute to the placer mining industry and all of the businesses and people in Dawson City and the rest of Yukon who are supporting Black Wednesday.

As indicated by the unanimous motion from this House yesterday, all representatives of each Yukon riding are in support of having the minister reconsider the decision, which severely impacts the industry. We came to a unanimous agreement on that in this House yesterday. I think this event in Dawson City today is certainly an indication that the business community is very strongly in support of the placer mining industry as well.

So, on this day, we also wish to recognize the importance of democracy in the world. Later today, we will be discussing the motion on the Iraq war. We live in very interesting times, Mr. Speaker. Even though we have been a democracy in this country for well over a century now, the very debate about democracy is still very relevant to our society today.

Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Kenyon:   I’m also very pleased to recognize the unanimity of this House yesterday in support of the placer miners and the Yukon placer authorization, and to show my support, my party’s support and this government’s support for the Klondike placer mining industry and the City of Dawson on this Black Wednesday.

The placer mining industry in the Yukon has a special significance to the territory. It helped to create a separate jurisdiction in Canada in 1898, and it remains an economic mainstay to this day, over 100 years later.

The establishment of the Yukon placer authority has served to enable the placer mining industry to continue operations while protecting and preserving fish habitat for over a decade.

Yesterday in this House, a unanimous motion in support of the Yukon placer mining industry was passed, and this is an issue that truly impacts all Yukoners.

The decision by the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to reject the report of the Yukon Placer Committee is very serious indeed. The DFO has dismissed 20 years of hard work by governments, including First Nation governments and stakeholders, out of hand.

The Yukon government is working cooperatively with the industry and with our Member of Parliament, Mr. Larry Bagnell, and with our Senator, Ione Christensen, and with First Nation governments across the board to come up with a solution that will be satisfactory to everyone.

I would like to give credit to all the people mentioned above for the hard work and effort they have put into the survival of this industry, which is essential, Mr. Speaker. We are seeking an extension of the Yukon placer authorization as the management tool to be used until such time as a new management tool has been fully developed — and one that we can all agree to.

We are working toward a new arrangement that will seek — immediately with the DFO and all Yukon stakeholders — to rebuild a working relationship and a management regime that reflects the management responsibilities that DFO, First Nations and YTG share through the Fisheries Act, the land claims Umbrella Final Agreement, the Yukon Waters Act and the Environmental Assessment (Yukon) Act.

It is essential that industry can cooperate and continue to operate with legal certainty while maintaining the protection of the Yukon fishery.

Speaker:   Introduction of visitors.

Are there any returns or documents for tabling?

Are there any reports of committees?

Are there any petitions?

Are there any bills to be introduced?

Are there any notices of motion?

Ms. Duncan:   I give notice of the following motion:

THAT it is the opinion of this House that

THAT this House urges the Yukon Party government to introduce a supplementary budget this spring that contains an increase to the direct operating grant for daycares to address the following issues:

Speaker:   Are there any further notices of motion?

Mr. Hardy:   I give notice of the following motion:

THAT it is the opinion of this House that

THAT this House urges the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to visit the Yukon and conduct public hearings into the future of fish habitat protection in the territory in order to provide the minister with relevant advice that reflects Yukon values and concerns.

Speaker:   Are there any further notices of motion?

Mr. Hassard:   I give notice of the following motion:

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the environmental liability for the seven major Type II mine sites in Yukon is the responsibility of the Government of Canada; and

THAT this House urges the Government of Canada to establish a federal environmental liability fund sufficient to cover the cleanup costs of the seven major sites such as Faro and to turn the management of this fund over to the Government of Yukon to enable Yukon contractors to do the reclamation work.

Speaker:   Are there any further notices of motion?

Mr. Fairclough:   I give notice of the following motion:

THAT it is the opinion of this House that Yukon’s health care services are currently being eroded due to a shortage of health care professionals; and

THAT this House urges the Yukon government to implement programs and incentives that will attract and retain health care professionals, such as nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors and dentists.

Speaker:   Are there any further notices of motion?

Is there a ministerial statement?

This then brings us to Question Period.

Mr. Fairclough:   My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, in spite of the Yukon Party’s campaign promises, his department’s budget has been cut dramatically, and in some very disturbing areas. We’ve heard the Premier and the minister responsible for the Public Service Commission say, in this House, that there will be no layoffs as a result of this budget.

Can the minister confirm that auxiliary on-call family support workers in rural Yukon are losing their jobs because of the 11-percent cut in family and children’s services?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   Mr. Speaker, I cannot confirm that information. It’s incorrect.

Mr. Fairclough:   Well, Mr. Speaker, maybe the minister can pay a little bit more attention to what’s really happening here in the Yukon.

Mr. Speaker, the family support workers are people who are hands-on people. They work directly with individuals and families who are in need of counselling, and they provide intense home support dealing with parenting issues. What they do is very important in their communities.

The department estimates that 130 families in rural Yukon will need family services. Yet, Mr. Speaker, only eight families will be getting the services of the family support worker next year — 130 and only eight will be getting it. It’s not about changing trajectories; it’s about this government turning its back on Yukon children and Yukon families.

What is the minister going to do to make sure that rural Yukoners who need family support services will continue to get those services?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   Mr. Speaker, the premise for the member opposite’s question is actually very incorrect. It’s our government’s position that we will continue to provide the highest level of care possible in rural Yukon, either directly or indirectly through other agencies. And there are more government bodies involved in the delivery of this service than the Department of Health and Social Services.

So we will continue to provide the consistent high level of care in this area that our department has always provided and we will continue to provide.

Mr. Fairclough:   It’s certainly shocking that this minister, who comes from a rural community in the Yukon, doesn’t appreciate the impact of this cut. I ask the minister to really look carefully at what the cuts in this budget do. Apart from families affected directly, what about the on-call workers who are losing their jobs — who are losing their jobs, Mr. Speaker? The minister’s own colleague promised no job losses in any YTG category, and this is exactly what is happening.

Now, jobs are scarce in the Yukon, we all know that. No wonder people are leaving, when their own government is making things even worse. Will the minister now undo the damage that this cut is causing and ensure that the auxiliary on-call family support workers will still have their jobs in the upcoming year? Will he ensure that?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   The member opposite is trying to make the case that this government is cutting jobs. That is a very, very inaccurate statement. It does not reflect what our government is doing. In fact, the level of employment by Yukon government today is at an all-time high, at approximately 3,600 employees. It’s an all-time high. Any of these positions that haven’t been filled, the departments are taking the utmost direction and efforts to fill the positions.

But, as an elected official, it’s not my responsibility to fill these positions; it’s the departments’ responsibility. In some areas, they are having a very difficult time. We have budgeted the funds necessary to fill these positions. We know we have to deliver these services, and we will continue to provide the best and highest level of care that we possibly can as a government.

Mr. Fairclough:   To the same minister. Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago I tabled a motion calling on the government to implement programs and incentives to attract and retain health care professionals. Perhaps the motion sounded a bit familiar to the Minister of Health and Social Services, because it was word for word the same motion that stood in the minister’s name when he was on this side of the House. I would like to ask a simple question of the minister. Does the minister still support that position, or is that something else that has changed since the November 4, 2002, election?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   First of all let me thank the press for reporting on this because if it weren’t for the press, and if it weren’t for motions that I and my colleagues tabled in opposition, it would appear that the official opposition would have no questions to raise in this Legislature. With that said, it is our government’s position that we have fully funded these categories for attraction and recruitment, and we are making our best effort to attract and recruit health care professionals in all categories.

Mr. Fairclough:   People are more interested in deeds, not just in words. We have a new budget in front of us: a budget that is all about cutting services, cutting programs, all in the name of some horrible trajectory. I have read the department’s budget over and over and I can’t see where the money for recruiting nurses and nurse practitioners is identified. Maybe the minister can help me out with that and tell me how much his department plans to invest in this initiative next year compared to the current year level of funding?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   Yes, I can help the member opposite out. Our government will be spending $1.108 million on human resources in this category.

Mr. Fairclough:   Well, Mr. Speaker, we see a 20-percent cut in the department’s human resource budget. That must give some cause for concern for the minister. The situation we’ve been facing in attracting and hanging on to our nurses and nurse practitioners is not going to get any better. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we see it getting steadily worse.

Yukon has an ageing population. Canada’s universities can’t keep up with the growing demand for nurses. Many nurses are retiring or moving on to better paying locations and giving up their high-stress occupation. So I would like to ask the minister this: will the minister table his government’s current strategy for attracting nurses and nurse practitioners in this highly competitive market, as well as any programs and incentives that are in the works to help keep the nurses and nurse practitioners we already have, especially in rural Yukon? Can the minister table those plans?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   Now, what the member opposite is targeting on is the $270,000 that was reported in the newspaper as a reduction in the recruitment and retention of nurses. That’s incorrect, Mr. Speaker — totally incorrect. Our government is going to be spending $1.108 million on the relocation of all health care professionals across the department to the Yukon. The amount identified in the $270,000 is a reduction in the total relocation. A number of the positions have been filled, and we don’t need to spend that amount of money across the entire department.

The recruitment and retention strategy that was implemented a couple years ago by the previous administration for the attraction and recruitment of health care professionals, specifically nurses and nurse practitioners, remains fully funded. In addition to this, our government is exploring other avenues with the Hospital Corporation and with other entities to address these shortfalls.

Ms. Duncan:   I have some questions for the Premier. Yesterday in Question Period, the Premier admitted that this government has no money for child care workers. The workers were promised money during the election campaign, and the promise has been broken. The government has no money for child care workers because it’s handing out the money instead to sole-source contracts to Yukon Party friends and candidates, and $40,000 raises to top political staff.

Yesterday in this House the Premier suggested — and he used the words "due process" — that decisions to give raises were made by the Public Service Commission. Mr. Speaker, the due process is that if a job is reclassified and a raise is given to someone, it’s either requested by the supervisor or by the employee — in this case, either the Premier or the chief of staff.

My question to the Premier: whose decision was it to advance these $40,000 raises? Whose idea was it?

Hon. Mr. Fentie:   Well, again, the member is incorrect about the Public Service Commission in this regard. There is a process that classifies jobs for caucus and Cabinet staff. There is a process that sets salaries. Unfortunately, the member opposite, when in government, didn’t follow any of that process and anointed people to positions. We didn’t do that. We ensured that we did not interfere politically in any of these matters, and we are proud of that fact.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, it’s important that when we entice people in this territory to leave their businesses and come to work in the Yukon government with commitment and dedication to turn this territory around, I think we are getting fair value for what we are paying for. So, quite frankly, this is a non-issue. There’s no correlation here to child care and the hiring of caucus and government staff — never was and never will be.

Our commitment to the child care people of this territory, to children and to families, remains the same. We are working on that issue; that’s why we have put good people in place to deal with such things as this.

Ms. Duncan:   Mr. Speaker, the issue is $40,000 raises for some people and no raises for other people as promised during the election campaign.

Now, what the Premier just said is that he is trying to have Yukon voters believe that the Public Service Commissioner came down to his office and said, "Mr. Premier, the job classification for the chief of staff under the former Yukon Party government, the chief of staff under the former NDP government, and the chief of staff under the former Liberal government were all vastly underpaid. You need to give them a $40,000 raise." The public isn’t buying it, nor am I.

A $40,000 raise is either asked for by the employee or it’s asked for by the employee’s supervisor. Who was it — the Premier or the chief of staff — who insisted on a $40,000 raise for political staff?

Hon. Mr. Fentie:   Well, there was no raise. It’s a job classification based on a salary rate. It’s as simple as that.

This is a process in which we, the elected people, did not interfere. The other side of this coin is how the former member conducted government by not having any such process and anointing people to positions, whether it be through contract or hiring. We did not do that. We followed due process, and the results are as we see them today.

We have absolutely no qualms about defending that position. This was not something that was done in any way, shape or form to circumvent how hiring practices take place. In fact, it followed exactly how hiring should be done for caucus and Cabinet staff.

Ms. Duncan:   My first reaction to that speech by the Premier is unparliamentary, so I’m not even going to use it. The fact is that the job classifications — a change in job to amount to a raise — is either asked for by an employee or it’s asked for by a supervisor. There was a choice made. There was a $40,000 raise given to the top political staff and no raises for child care workers, as promised publicly by the Premier.

Now the Premier can stand on his feet all he wants and say that the previous government did such and such and such and such — which is absolute nonsense, Mr. Speaker. The fact is that the Premier hired the staff. The Premier or the chief of staff initiated the request of the Public Service Commission for a $40,000 wage increase. Who did it? Was it the Premier or was it the chief of staff who demanded a $40,000 raise for these positions — positions that were classified at a rate for three previous governments?

Hon. Mr. Fentie:   Well, the Premier did no such thing in demanding anything. This is a job classification. Again, I point out that there is no correlation here to our commitment to child care. We are working on that issue and we are doing it properly. Instead of taking knee-jerk reactions, we contracted a Yukoner to get into the heart of the matter and provide for this government the information required to make informed decisions. Any increase in wages and salaries to child care workers is based on the big picture here when it comes to child care and the total equation.

I stated yesterday on the floor of this Legislature that, by increasing wages, the child care workers — the way the system is set up — there is no guarantee that those wages will flow to the workers. We are going to ensure that what we do is achieve the desired result.

Now, the member is making some serious accusations. Those accusations are false accusations — they have no burden of proof. We conducted a process and we will continue to conduct those processes —

Speaker:   Order. Order please.

Some Hon. Member:   Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Speaker:   Member for Porter Creek South, on a point of order.

Ms. Duncan:   The member opposite cannot in his response accuse another member of making false accusations. That is unparliamentary.

Speaker:   The Member for Klondike, on the point of order.

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:  On the point of order, there is just a dispute between members.

Speaker:   I find that it is unparliamentary. However, I am not asking the member to withdraw. What I am asking is each side to control itself a little bit better.

Hon. Mr. Fentie:   As I was saying, Mr. Speaker — and I thank you for that. Let us rephrase it anyway. These are incorrect accusations, and we are continuing with the process for hiring exactly as we commenced. There is no political interference. We were very careful to ensure that our political people did not interfere with hiring in any way, shape or form. There is good reason for that, and —

Speaker:   I would ask the member to conclude.

Hon. Mr. Fentie:   As far as the child care issue goes, we are committed to it and we will deliver on it as we put together the necessary solutions along with all stakeholders.

Mrs. Peter:   I have a question for the minister responsible for the Public Service Commission. The Yukon Party’s election platform promised to reinstate the Women’s Directorate to its status prior to the former government’s renewal exercise. Last Thursday’s budget speech stated that this government has honoured that commitment and that the Women’s Directorate is no longer a branch within the Executive Council Office. Can the minister tell us what positions are involved in that change and when the actual move will take place?

Hon. Mr. Edzerza:   I don’t have that information with me at this point in time; however, I can get it to you within a short period of time.

Speaker:   Presuming you mean me, the Chair? You’ll be getting the information — thank you.

Mrs. Peter:   There has been considerable concern in the community about what a stand-alone status actually means when it comes to the Women’s Directorate. From a Public Service Commission perspective, is the minister satisfied that the new arrangement fully restores the Women’s Directorate to its previous status?

Hon. Mr. Fentie:   Mr. Speaker, the Public Service Commission had a great deal of input on the re-establishment of the Women’s Directorate to a stand-alone status. Instead of the Women’s Directorate reporting to a manager, the Women’s Directorate now reports to a minister. The director of the Women’s Directorate now sits at DMRC, in the formal meetings where policy is set in government, and the minister responsible for the Women’s Directorate — and this is testimony to our position and commitment to the women and the issues they face in this territory — rests at the highest office of government, the Premier’s office. I think we’ve done an admirable job on delivering on our commitment to the women of this territory.

Mrs. Peter:   Well, Mr. Speaker, at yesterday’s budget briefing on the Executive Council Office, we were advised that the new head of the Women’s Directorate will not have the full authority of a deputy minister. Apparently, certain functions related to the Public Service Commission will need to be channelled through a different department head. Will the minister tell us what those functions are, and can he explain how that reporting structure for the Women’s Directorate is consistent with the reporting structure prior to the renewal?

Hon. Mr. Fentie:   It is completely consistent with how the Women’s Directorate reported prior to renewal. The director of the Women’s Directorate now reports to a minister. During renewal, that was completely changed and diminished, in terms of status.

Going back to the member’s original question, all these things take effect in the new fiscal year, April 1, because the impetus for the changes are in the new budget. So, going back to recap, the Women’s Directorate, as we committed to reinstate it to what it was prior to renewal, has been done. It is fully budgeted and resourced. All things for the Women’s Directorate under its new regime will begin April 1, in the new fiscal year. And we see great things, in terms of what the Women’s Directorate will be delivering internally, as far as influencing government policy, ensuring gender equity and also working externally, outside of government, on the many challenges women face in this territory. The Women’s Directorate is alive and well and is going to be a very useful agency on behalf of this government.

Mr. McRobb:   Earlier in this sitting, I tabled a motion calling on the government to give top priority to providing low-cost options for second- and third-stage housing for seniors and elders in all Yukon communities where the need exists. Yukon seniors and elders should have the right to live with dignity and continue to contribute to their own communities, and remain close to their families, friends and loved ones. The need is out there in several Yukon communities. For instance, I have identified this as a top priority for the Kluane region.

The budget speech spins good talk, but does it walk the walk, Mr. Speaker? Can the Health minister indicate for us how much is devoted to this need within the Yukon Party’s budget?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   The preamble to the question is an area in which our government really agrees with the member opposite. There is a demonstrated need out there by the seniors for additional housing in all categories. It’s our party’s position that we will be addressing this issue in the most appropriate manner.

Now, we’ve met as a government with a number of the seniors organizations, and in our budget we have identified $100,000 for a review of seniors housing.

Mr. McRobb:   Well, in the budget speech, the Yukon Party government identifies Watson Lake and Dawson City as locations for future seniors facilities. Then in a news release from last week dated March 6, the Health minister is quoted as saying that initial projects to be funded include planning of multi-level care facilities in Watson Lake and Dawson City. This government talks about team Yukon, but in reality the minister and the Premier are hometown fans.

How many more political IOUs are out there? Can the minister explain for us why only the needs of Watson Lake and Dawson City are attended to and other regions like Kluane are ignored?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   Our party’s commitment is to seniors across the entire Yukon. Primarily the focus is in Whitehorse, and then we look at where the largest population of seniors are located and where the largest population centres are located. It’s not only Haines Junction; it’s a lot of other smaller communities. These will be addressed over the course of the next few budgets in a timely fashion. It’s a top priority for our government. Yes, we have identified, first, $100,000 for Watson Lake and Dawson City, but there has also been a lot of work done way in excess of that amount for seniors housing right here in Whitehorse.

Mr. McRobb:   Talk is cheap, Mr. Speaker. I would feel more comforted, and I’m sure all Yukoners would, if the minister would only have said it’s not just Watson Lake and Dawson City, but also other communities, like Haines Junction. We would all feel a little more secure in this matter.

Now, this same press release, it’s very interesting, because the minister is quoted in it as saying, "We will work with the public to determine just what our priorities and projects should be for the betterment of all Yukoners." Then it goes on to the quote, "Minister Jenkins said that initial projects to be funded include the planning of multi-level care facilities in Watson Lake and Dawson City."

Mr. Speaker, there’s a definite contradiction there. How can this government possibly be open-minded and willing to go and consult with Yukoners if it has the locations for these facilities predetermined? Will the minister now commit to holding a fair and open process and listening to all Yukoners on this issue?

Hon. Mr. Jenkins:   I’d like to thank the member opposite for the question, but all these studies, Mr. Speaker, are predicated on previous studies. There was a needs assessment study in Watson Lake. It’s 15 or 16 years old. There has been a needs assessment in Dawson City — that’s perhaps not of the same age, but it might even be older.

So, every area we are dealing with are areas that have been brought to our attention by the general public. I must correct the member opposite in that our thrust initially is primarily focused on Whitehorse, where the greatest need exists but, under the previous administration, a whole group of bed-sits — very small rooms — were identified as being the need, and the seniors came to us, as a government, and said, "No, we do not want that." So we’re having to go back and re-examine our options in Whitehorse and provide the facilities that the seniors here in Whitehorse want, as well as undertake a study in both Watson Lake and Dawson City to identify the needs and to bring forward a proposal. It’ll have input from both those communities, and then we will move on to the next communities, in that order, in subsequent years, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Cardiff:   Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education about another top priority. Tuition fees at post-secondary institutions across Canada have been rising at astronomical rates for the last few years. Student debt is one of the greatest barriers facing students today. The Yukon Party promised in their platform to index the Yukon student grant. My question: is that promise a promise that the minister intends to honour, and how long will students have to wait to receive additional assistance?

Hon. Mr. Edzerza:   The answer to that question is that the government does intend to work with the students. Students are a high priority to this government, and we will continue to go on that path.

Mr. Cardiff:   Well, that provides some comfort.

Yukon College is currently strapped for money, and it has even gone so far as to lay off staff. Now it is proposing to raise tuition and student fees to try and make ends meet. This is going to put more pressure on students attending local institutions. Under the College Act, it’s the minister’s responsibility to approve these increases. Does the minister intend to give his approval to these increases?

Hon. Mr. Edzerza:   It’s true that I was approached by Yukon College. And at this point in time, I have had discussions with the president of the College and the board, and I have agreed that we will look at raising the tuition fees. The answer is yes.

Mr. Cardiff:   Okay, so students can look forward to paying more to go to Yukon College. Hopefully, that will help address the shortfall at the College a little bit.

During the election and since they formed government, the minister and his colleagues have stated on many occasions that education is a major priority for them. Students attending Yukon College and universities and institutions in the south — some of them are working two and three part-time jobs and eating Kraft Dinner while they’re maintaining a full course load. And we’re waiting to hear when this minister is going to do something positive.

The line item in the budget related to student grants shows a four-percent decrease. So, will the minister tell the House how this reflects this government’s commitment to students in the Yukon?

Hon. Mr. Edzerza:   I thank the member opposite for that question. I would say today that the reason for that decrease, or reduction, is that there is a considerably lower projection in the number of students going out next year, and the budget reflects it that way.

Speaker:   Order please. The time for Question Period has now elapsed. We will proceed to Orders of the Day.

Clerk:   Motion No. 6, standing in the name of Mr. Hardy.

Speaker:   It is moved by the leader of the official opposition

THAT it is the opinion of this House that

(1) neither the United States Administration nor the United States Security Council has provided any compelling evidence to justify a declaration of war on the people of Iraq; and

(2) the integrity of Canada as a sovereign nation would be in jeopardy if this country allowed itself to be drawn into unjustified military ventures at the behest of the United States or any other military power; and

THAT this House urges the Government of Canada to adopt an independent foreign policy that includes restricting the use of Canadian military personnel and resources to the roles of peacekeeping, research, assistance in civil emergencies and defence against direct threats to the Canadian nation or its people.

Mr. Hardy:   I am very pleased to speak to this motion today. I believe it’s appropriate that this is a motion before the House, considering the dire situation that we’re facing in the world today.

Over the last few months we have seen a buildup of arms in the Middle East, all targeted at Iraq. We stand on the brink of a disastrous war that would change the course of history. At stake are hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, 50 years of nuclear containment, the international legal framework constructed in the aftermath of the Second World War and a potential destabilization of the entire Middle East region.

This motion that we brought forward today is a request that Canada chart a different course in the actions that have been building up to this conflict. It’s extremely important that Canada have a separate foreign policy — it’s mentioned in the motion. It’s also very important that Canada lives up to a role that is recognized throughout the world so that countries that are in conflict or even in conflict within a country or nation, or when there are conflicts between countries, can be addressed by often going to another country to intervene.

Canada has fulfilled a role as peacekeepers in this world that is recognized among the people of the world. It’s extremely important that we, as Canadians, continue to support that.

There are already enough countries in this world today that are quite eager to go to war. There are already enough dominant countries that can oppose or put the pressure on another country as they see fit. What the world needs is more peacekeepers, and Canada does fulfill that role and is respected throughout the world for that.

The world community often looks toward Canada when there are conflicts, and we have served that role. We have been in areas of the world where there are catastrophes or uprisings or conflicts. We have been in the Middle East and tried to address some of the serious concerns between nations, between people. If Canada adopts a position in support of what I consider an unjust war, it will lose that credibility and the world itself will lose a role that is so desperately needed, and that is the role of peacekeeping.

I firmly believe, and I say it up front, that there is a resolution to this problem that exists today. I believe there is a peaceful solution, if people will give it time, if countries — when I say "countries", I mean the United States government, not its people, and Great Britain — would pull back a little bit, allow the process of the inspections to happen, allow what is obviously becoming very obvious, allow the Iraqi regime to dismantle some of their weapons, allow the UN to play the role that people in this world expect it to play, and not try to dominate that, not try to twist it or shape it to what the U.S. or Great Britain are trying to do in order to get a result that I firmly believe will not result in peace, nor will it result in the end of terrorism.

I do not believe that, by attacking Iraq, we are going to have an end to terrorism. I believe that, by attacking Iraq, we’ll have an increase in terrorism.

I do not believe that by dropping bombs on the people of Iraq that the people of the Middle East will become a democratic area. As it is right now — and I heard this at a lecture that was held last week up at the Yukon College; the guest speaker was Gwynne Dyer. It was a fabulous lecture. Everybody should have had opportunity to have gone to it. But what I heard was that going into Iraq will create a tremendous destabilization of that region and can cause tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of deaths. Also, it could have the impact of regime change — not in the direction that we as peace-loving people, as democratic countries want, but in a different direction and one that will ultimately hate the West.

So why would you go into Iraq? There have been a lot of arguments. I’ll put some of them out there right now: weapons of mass destruction. That was one of the first ones that was brought forward: Iraq has weapons of mass destruction that can be used against its neighbours but moreso and what I heard was against the United States of America. Since it has been the United States government, George Bush, who has been leading this charge, you have to make that connection that there was some fear that Iraq, with its very small population that is extremely poor — the people in Iraq live in tremendous poverty — that there is actually no proof of nuclear weapons or any being developed, that it has been under tremendous sanctions since 1991, would have these weapons, somehow have these weapons hidden that would be able to go, shoot all the way across and be able to inflict damage to the people of the United States.

Well, if that were truly the case, maybe the United States would have an argument here. But there has been no proof given. As of now, over the last few months, putting aside all the rhetoric that we have heard out there, there has been absolutely no proof that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The inspectors have been in there now for over a month — I think almost two months — and they have not found any evidence in that area.

The United States, which has been leading this charge — and I should say the United States government. When I say the United States, I am referring to the government because I do not believe this is the will of the people. I have some polls that I’ll read later pointing to that. They have not been able to prove that those weapons exist. So at some point, they had to shift that argument because they didn’t have the proof. So what did they shift it to? They shifted it to say that Iraq was a harbour for terrorists, a breeding ground for terrorists.

Now, there might be some truth in that but, if you’re going to attack the country, it can’t be just speculation — that they might have. Let’s not forget that there was a war, there was an invasion two years ago in Afghanistan. That was to attack the terrorists. That was to flush out the terrorists — terrorists who had attacked the United States of America on September 11, as we are all very familiar with. They went into Afghanistan. They went after the cells that existed to try to capture the people who were responsible for that horrific crime against humanity.

So they did attack a country. Afghanistan was the country. They went in there; it was a very successful operation by their standards; they overthrew the government, the Taliban; they went into the hills and, in some cases, they believe they were successful in getting some of the terrorists. They firmly believe they were able to disrupt the terrorist activities — at least that cell.

So that has happened, but after the movement into Afghanistan, what were they going to do? They didn’t have a leader; they didn’t have many of what they felt were the players. They were very successful in Afghanistan, but they were still looking for a target. They were still trying to find the continuation of the role of war.

At the lecture the other night, Gwynne Dyer gave some reasons why, and one of them I’ll read here. In his words, "Bush and his advisors have concluded the administration needs the ongoing perception of a crisis to maintain a lofty perch in public opinion polls.

"Until September 11, 2001, Bush had been the least popular president since the Second World War. Half of Americans thought he had stolen the presidency. Two weeks after 9-11, his 50-percent approval was 90 percent.

" The real crisis ended in December 2001," Dyer says, "and Bush began a nine-month slide in the polls, with mid-term congressional elections looming last November." Dyer envisioned the Bush circle saying, "Wouldn’t it be handy if we could keep a crisis going awhile longer? Round up the usual suspects."

So what did they do? They got a Canadian speech writer who was down there, one of the many speech writers they have — this was a Canadian fellow — and he coined the phrase "axis of evil", and they were able to create three countries that were considered, in their eyes, as evil, and three countries that had to be dealt with, and dealt with now, because they’re a threat.

This is an interesting position and there might be a lot of truth to it. A lot of other people say there are other issues that are motivating the desire to go into Iraq. One of them is oil. Iraq happens to have the second largest oil deposits in the world and everybody knows that the west has a tremendous reliance on fossil fuels — especially in the United States — and they want access to those fuels. One way to get access to the Iraqi fuel is to overthrow Saddam Hussein and put in a puppet leader of their making who would ensure that the oil would flow to their markets. The terrorist argument was used — that has kind of fallen by the wayside because, again, they haven’t been able to connect the dots. That has been one of the most difficult things for those who are arguing to have this war. Finally, and I just heard this one more recently, is the new argument of why they have to go after Iraq and the people of Iraq and that is because they are "enemies of freedom". I heard that on the television the other night and it is starting to be said more and more. Well, what does that actually mean, "enemies of freedom"? Free from what? We can argue — I don’t think we even need to argue this one. There is no question out there that Saddam Hussein isn’t a kind leader. He is an atrocious leader. He has treated his people horribly. But, are you going to free people — are you going to go into somebody else’s country and free people by dropping 36,000 bombs on them? Are you going to go into the streets and kill tens of thousands of civilians to get at one man?

Is that freedom? Are you going to impose freedom? That is the question we have to ask: does the United States have the moral authority to impose their type of freedom on another country or other people? And if they are going to do that, then why just Iraq? Why not look around at the rest of the world and identify all these places — these despotic leaders, these very cruel dictatorships — and treat them the same way?

Why Iraq? Why now is it specifically Iraq? Because in the Middle East, there is not a true democracy. So all of those countries are subject to that same kind of treatment. And broaden it — what about China? And now you have North Korea. They have been included in the "axis of evil". There are three of them — Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Why isn’t North Korea being targeted right now? They are far, far closer to creating a nuclear weapon, which is a weapon of mass destruction, than Iraq is — far closer. Iran is far closer to creating that type of weapon. But neither of those are being targeted right at the moment. Maybe they will be later.

But there’s China, just as an example. It’s a huge country. Has it been targeted? And you can go around the world. You can look into many of the dictatorships within Africa and some of them down in South America. And where’s Cuba in this? In the eyes of the United States government, Cuba is not a democracy, and they have a serious problem, a very serious problem with Cuba.

Some Hon. Member:   (Inaudible)

Mr. Hardy:   I’m glad the member across the way has indicated that it isn’t. I agree with him — it’s not a democracy. But it also raises the question of whose democracy and what type of democracy — the western view of democracy?

There are other democracies in the world; there are other shapes to a democracy. But imposing your form on another country does not indicate a democratic shift away from a dictatorship. It is a dictatorship imposing another form of country rule.

Now, the United Nations has a role to play in this world. For the longest time, the United Nations has in some ways been disregarded — you could say that it has not been respected by many countries. Definitely the United States government has had problems with the United Nations. However, it is what its name implies — united nations. It does allow input from a multitude of countries on major issues facing major international issues.

Interestingly enough, what this crisis that we are leading toward — where we’re going — has done for the United Nations is that it has, in many ways, reinvigorated its role and raised its stature throughout the world. That’s important, Mr. Speaker, because many people on one side are saying that, if overlooked by the United States and if the United States goes it alone — or with Great Britain, which seems to be really pulling back now and questioning how fast things are moving in regard to going into Iraq — as they said they will do, because they believe it’s their moral authority — go in and attack Iraq — the United Nations, as I was implying, will become ineffective and will ultimately be threatened itself. But I happen to disagree with that argument. I believe the United Nations is becoming more effective and it’s becoming more relevant in today’s situation in the world today.

This is being re-established by this conflict that we’re facing. And the real conflict that exists between two members on the Security Council and the other members on the Security Council who are taking different views or thinking of abstaining, thinking of vetoing the vote that may come forward — and with another few also supporting. Spain is one of them, even though even Spain now is saying, "Hold it here."

And why are they saying that? They’re saying that because they’re seeing some real results happening with the inspections in Iraq. They’re seeing that Saddam Hussein is being contained by these inspections; they’re seeing that weapons are now being destroyed. And they’re not your first-class weapons, I’ll tell you right now, as anybody knows. These are not weapons that would have been able to cross any ocean. Most of them, if they had been fired into a neighbouring country, would have ended up in fields, as I’ve heard from other speakers. But they are being destroyed, and the inspectors are daily being given more opportunity to find out what exactly exists in Iraq.

So the world is seeing that it is working. So then the questions become: why do we have to go to war, why do we have to set an arbitrary date that is so short and almost impossible to fulfill, when there may be a possibility that in two weeks or three weeks this regime will be contained — their weapons, definitely — and it may also lead to an opportunity to have real change within Iraq for the people of Iraq?

If war happens there — and some people predict that it’s going to happen no matter what the UN says or what any other country says — what’s it going to cause there? I don’t believe, as I said earlier, that more democracies will pop up in the Middle East.

These problems that exist in the Middle East are very, very old. Most of them seemed to have derived from the intervention or the influence of western society trying to shape the Middle East the way it wants.

The Middle East region is very unstable. The people are very poor. The conflicts that exist there today are already volatile. This would not dampen that volatility. This will increase it. One that we are all familiar with of course is the Israel-Palestine situation. That is a terrible, terrible situation for two countries to be in — if you can say that the Palestinians have a country because in many cases they don’t.

And it will create more terrorists because the people there do not want, like we would not want, to see intervention again from the West telling them what they should and should not have and how they should and should not live. Unfortunately, you get some crazy people who would take that and fan the flames of hatred, and that is what they would create their terrorist cells out of. We could look toward retaliation in ways we have never, ever imagined. No one imagined September 11. So if you couldn’t even imagine that, you’ll never know how they could strike if we fan those flames into a greater deal of hatred. I honestly believe that peace begets peace and war begets war.

So the outcome in Iraq would not be the same as what happened in Afghanistan. Again, I want to read a few paragraphs of Gwynne Dyer’s lecture to us that was reported in the paper and what he sees would happen — not forgetting that in Afghanistan, there was only a small, limited amount of loss of life. There are a lot of people who believe that Iraq would be in the same situation but the majority of people who are involved in military operations — generals and that — say it will not be the same operation, it’s a totally different situation. What Gwynne Dyer says here is often supported by many of them.

"Dyer foresees tens of thousands of Iraqis perishing, and hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. soldiers dying as well. ‘The objective is to kill as many Americans as possible. The American goal is to collapse as many buildings as possible. That will kill civilians.’

" ‘Hussein sees his sole hope,’ Dyer said, ‘as having as many Iraqis die and American soldiers killed as to inspire a global wave of revulsion against the conflict.

" ‘It won’t work. He will let civilians die in the basements of the buildings they are living in. I think this is going to get quite ugly.’

" ‘If Hussein has any missiles left,’ Dyer said, ‘he will fire them at Israel as he did during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.’ But the weapons are old and inaccurate, and ‘most will fall in the fields and kill a few grazing sheep.’ "

Should Israelis retaliate — something it did not do 12 years ago but it said it would do this time — " ‘you can guarantee the mobs will be out in the streets burning American buildings and bringing down American-backed governments in the Arab world,’ Dyer said."

" ‘Those includes the unstable regimes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan,’ " he added.

" ‘These would be succeeded by Islamic regimes sympathetic to the views of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden,’ Dyer said. ‘Peace treaties would be cancelled… there is more potential for an Arab-Israeli war we have not seen in 30 years.’ "

It’s frightening, when you think of that. This is a military analyst and journalist who has spent definitely the last 30 years of his life studying both Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East. He has been there many times; he knows the players there, he’s an advisor, and this is his perspective. This is a perspective that is shared by many others.

I don’t think there’s anybody here who wants to see something like that, nor can imagine that something like that would be of benefit to the world. It would create a new world order that we may not be able to comprehend at this moment, and we may not like.

An interesting comment by Mr. Chrétien that quite surprised me, as it surprised many others, is that when the Iraqi one is finished, who’s next? Who will be next in the line? Will it be all the axis of evil? Because if you’re using that kind of language and you’re promoting that kind of action to be taken, and this is being promoted, as I said earlier, by the United States government — the only superpower of the world, the one that has thousands of nuclear weapons; they have arsenals of chemical weapons. They have the means to mobilize and move troops and ships anywhere in the world. They are the superpower. This is what is being proposed. Who’s next?

By their own language, it would probably be Iran, which is right close to Iraq. Then it would be a jump over to North Korea.

I feel that if Iraq is attacked, and the war materializes the way it has been predicted here — because no one can really tell you what’s going to happen, other than it will be far, far worse than Afghanistan. That’s a given. And then it goes to Iran. I can’t imagine the other Middle East countries sitting very comfortably with that. Eventually, they will say, "Enough." And they are beginning to say that already, because they will ask the same question: who is next? If we disagree with the superpower, will we be next?

And then you take this huge jump over to North Korea. I can’t imagine South Korea sitting very easy with that. We have already seen indications along those lines, when they were just named. I can’t imagine all the other countries in that region being very comfortable with another war in that area, because it was not long ago, in those people’s minds, that Vietnam happened. That created a tremendous amount of hatred over there. Unfortunately, in this day and age we live in, the ability to conduct a war, not on your territory but on someone else’s — whether it’s through terrorist activities or missiles or nuclear weapons — has become a lot easier.

So, what Pandora’s box are you opening up if you start down this path? The UN, through its inspectors, are trying to resolve this issue, and they are being successful. If it is weapons of mass destruction, and that is the issue here — that was the primary issue — then the UN inspectors are having an impact.

Throughout the world, Mr. Speaker, people have been speaking about this war. This in many ways has become the first global protest against war — against anything, honestly — where tens of millions of people were in the street — on February 15, over 10 million people demonstrated in hundreds of cities around the world. That is a first. There is a very strong feeling in the world today that this war is unjust, that this desire by the United States government to attack Iraq, to go in and try to get Saddam Hussein, is unjust, not because anybody supports that man. There’s not a person I know out there in any of these peace movements, I would suspect, who believes that he is a good person who should be in government. I believe he should be removed, but I do not believe that killing tens of thousands of people and going into a country, disrupting an area that may create more conflict and may cause more deaths and create a chain effect, a domino effect throughout the Middle East that may expand farther to take one person out is the way to do this.

I believe there is a way to do it. And it has been done in the past, Mr. Speaker. There have been great, great leaders in the world’s history who have changed the course of a country, a belief in a country, the leadership of a country, a change to democracy through peaceful means, through a belief that you can do it without violence. That doesn’t say that violence doesn’t erupt, but these people have led through peaceful means, and we are very familiar with some of the names. Ghandi was one of them, a non-violent person who changed India.

Martin Luther King, who dealt with segregation, changed it through peaceful means. He never took up arms to change the oppression of the black people of the United States. Nelson Mandela managed to do it. Those are examples and those are examples that we should take heart in. Those are people who believed that you could make a change through a m method other than violence, and in this case I believe it applies as well.

I am going to give a few figures here, Mr. Speaker, on the impacts of war. A U.S.-led attack on Iraq could kill between 48,000 and 260,000 civilians and combatants in just the first three months of conflict. Now that is far more than what Gwynne Dyer said, but this is the area that they are talking about. They are not talking about 100 or 50 or four that happened in Afghanistan. You are talking of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. This is according to a study by medical and public health experts. Post-war health effects could take an additional 200,000 lives, says the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The health impacts of the Gulf War of 1991 on U.S. troops were massive, with 160,000 of the 573,000 present in the Gulf War now having been certified with service-related medical problems, many due to exposure of the chemical depleted uranium, biological agents and nerve gas. Since 1945, 84 percent of the people killed in war have been civilians — 84 percent.

Now, there are petitions out there, Mr. Speaker. I would hope that people would be willing to sign them. There is a multitude of petitions. If you go on the Internet, you will find petitions from all around the world opposing war, saying no to war in Iraq. There are also local petitions. This one is by Alexa McDonough, MP for Halifax, NDP member. And this has been up here for awhile. People have been signing it, and I would hope that members opposite would be willing to sign this as well, so it can be presented to the House of Commons.

There is another petition as well. It’s called "Canadian Peace Alliance". Again, it’s a petition that will be presented to the House of Commons by a Member of Parliament. It doesn’t identify who, and I don’t think it really matters who brings the petition forward in this case. It’s the message that is important.

Motions have been brought forward in the House of Commons. The Bloc brought forward a motion and there was debate on it, and I’ll just read a little bit of it:

"THAT this House consider the sending of troops to Iraq by the government only after the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution explicitly authorizing a military intervention in Iraq". This is dated February 12. The position in this one, of course, is U.N. sanction for a military operation. I don’t necessarily believe that that is even necessary, and our motion is not in support of this one, but it recognizes the importance of it. It recognizes what the Bloc was trying to do.

Interestingly enough, our Member of Parliament from the Yukon voted against it. There was also a Canadian Alliance motion and, more than anything else, it surrounded ensuring that the House has a say in any kind of actions taken. And there was an amendment by the Bloc to it. I’m just tying it all together right now. I’ll just read the last part of it, from the Bloc amendment. "… or in the event that a decision is made while the House stands adjourned." This should clarify it a little bit. "Notwithstanding any Standing Order, the Speaker shall convene the House at the earliest opportunity." What it’s really saying is that the House — the elected members, at the Canadian federal level — should be able to have a debate around Canada’s involvement in any kind of actions in Iraq.

And our Member of Parliament did not support that one, either. And that’s a shame, because I do know that he has been up here saying he is opposed to war, and I’m glad to hear that. But you also have to say it in the House. This is why we stand here today and are having this motion brought forward and having this debate.

The UN has a huge role to play here. Unfortunately, because of the splits between these countries, I believe that this desire to have a war with Iraq is causing alliances to be formed that may not have existed in the past. And you’re seeing the European Union taking a side — you’re seeing Germany, Russia and France saying they will veto any motion brought forward by the United States to begin the war operations, with China and Pakistan already indicating they may abstain.

Now, some countries, as I said earlier, indicated they were going to support the United States in the vote, but have now said, "Well, hold it here. We are seeing results. Let’s give it more time."

Hopefully, that rational talk in there will have some sway, just as what we say here and what we’re trying to do will.

Interesting enough, in the United States, the people themselves are not necessarily for a war. No matter what the President says — and I’ll give you a couple of figures here. According to a CBC News poll, Americans support the idea of using military force to remove Saddam Hussein, but they overwhelmingly want diplomatic efforts and the inspection to run their course first. The poll found that 63 percent of Americans want President Bush to find a diplomatic solution. What’s more, Americans seem to want hard evidence that Iraq is cheating regarding its weapons. More than two-thirds, 77 to 17, say that if inspectors haven’t found a smoking gun, they should keep looking — give them time.

Just some examples around the world — Italy is 85 percent against the war, according to polls taken there; Thailand, 75 percent; Uruguay, 79 percent; over in Pakistan, 60 percent; the majority of Canadians oppose the war; and the majority of people in Great Britain oppose the war, even though the leader, Mr. Blair, has been supporting the United States in their actions, and he has gotten himself into a difficult situation there.

Now, Canada yesterday introduced a new proposal, or a refined proposal from the one they introduced a couple of weeks ago, and it sets a three-week deadline for Iraq to meet disarmament demands or face the prospect of war.

The council has set three weeks for Iraq to demonstrate conclusively that it is cooperating actively and effectively on substance, on real disarmament and not only on process, Mr. Heinbecker told the Security Council during open debate. Now, Canada is not a council member. It goes on to say, "We are convinced that Iraq is substantially contained and that if it cooperates, it can be disarmed without a shot being fired." That’s very heartening to hear. It shows Canada is not, in this case, following, but they are actually trying to find a resolution and they are trying to act as peacekeepers — and I applaud that that work is happening.

I am going to finish talking here so everybody has a chance. But what I think is very clear is that the people of this world do not want this war — Canadians do not want it — and it’s really time for the insanity to stop. We can and must find peaceful solutions to conflict if we’re going to have a future.

Thank you.

Mr. Cathers:   I appreciate the comments we’ve just heard expressed by the leader of the official opposition. Obviously this is a subject that he has a great deal of concern for and a great deal of passion is involved, but we have to be very careful as we sit here in this body that we don’t let passion overwhelm reason. I must say that I was surprised when I heard this motion proposed and I sort of took a look around me and I thought, "Well, am I where I think I am?" I thought this was the Government of Canada’s business. National defence is very clearly the responsibility of the Government of Canada.

It’s very important that we don’t confuse what our roles are here, and certainly, speaking for myself and, I’m sure, on behalf of my government colleagues — as a matter of fact, I know on behalf of my government colleagues — we don’t have the intelligence information that the Canadian government has been receiving. We don’t have the information the United States has been receiving. We are not on that list. We don’t have the inside information on this.

It’s very dangerous, Mr. Speaker, to stand here and start making very serious decisions on this. And make no mistake — this is a very serious matter. I agree with the leader of the official opposition on this. We’re talking about the lives of people; we’re talking about nuclear weapons; we’re talking about chemical weapons, biological weapons. This is not a trifling matter here, and to make a decision without full information is ridiculous, it’s ill-advised, it’s tremendously dangerous — and we do not have that information here.

If the members opposite are on the list for intelligence information from the Canadian government, I’d certainly appreciate it if they’d share it with us over on this side, because we certainly haven’t been privileged in that manner.

This gets into another issue that has resounded throughout this entire debate. A major point has been that the United States claims it has intelligence information that it is not willing to release. Well, strictly from a policy angle, we can look at that and say, well, for heaven’s sake, we need to make a decision here and we have to have that information. But, Mr. Speaker, we get into the issue here that intelligence information comes from intelligence sources. Intelligence sources are, in many cases, people. There’s electronic intelligence, such as the radio frequency listening posts, the satellites, but there’s the human intelligence, the people on the ground, and people who are on the ground are usually in sensitive positions if they have any ability to give information.

So, the very fact of a government disclosing information may reveal who that source is. In many cases, the information that is revealed is so tightly controlled that there would only be a couple of sources of that. So, if a government, such as the United States — if we demand that they reveal all intelligence sources and all information that they have, the very revelation of those sources by them would probably jeopardize the lives of those sources. These are people. You can call them sources, but they’re people.

And now you might lay forth the argument, "Well, what’s one life or two lives or half a dozen or maybe a dozen, in comparison to the thousands we’re talking about?" Well, that’s fine if we’re playing the numbers game, but when a nation deals with their policy of gathering intelligence information, if they set the precedent that they are willing to sacrifice their sources, that they are willing to sacrifice their agents, at the drop of a hat for political expediency, how many sources do you think they’ll get in the future? To have a source trust you — to give information, to risk their life — they have to have absolute confidence, or as absolute as it gets — but they have to be confident that the government they are dealing with will keep their information confidential — that it will not sacrifice them.

So, as I say, it sounds like a reasonable request — that we want to have all the information revealed — but revealing that on the public stage is sacrificing people. There’s no doubt about that. It has been made very clear by the United States that that would be the result of this. So, it’s not an easy thing — just to snuff them like that. Well, that’s not reasonable. We have to look at the long-term goals because, maybe 10 or 20 years down the road, you get into another crisis that suddenly you have no information about, no advance warning, and it blows up in your face because no one is willing to give you information.

The United States, of course, spends a lot more money on intelligence gathering than most nations, such as Canada does. Canada has very few intelligence assets these days, whether electronic or human. The United States has listening posts in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, in King Khalid military city in Saudi Arabia and in the City of Kuwait. These are big dishes that are monitoring radio signals or encrypted signals. This information goes to these posts in those two cities, which is shared among and between the United States government, their military intelligence services and the National Security Agency. The local governments have some involvement in there because it is on their soil. They deal also with decrypting encrypted information and with this, of course, often a certain portion of it and certainly anything very serious is transmitted back to the main NSA, CIA and military intelligence headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The United States also has satellites in the area. These are both photographic satellites — I believe the KH-11 type is the one currently in use — as well as infrared satellites that are capable of seeing through clouds and at night.

But we don’t have those assets. We have no spy satellites. So we’re relying on their intelligence information and, once more, it gets into the sensitivity of the intelligence information. Even regarding photographic intelligence, Mr. Speaker, there’s always the danger that if that information is transmitted as, "Well, this is what we’ve seen from the air," perhaps the Iraqi government or whomever is the target in any surveillance case with spy satellites then becomes aware that some activity they thought they were protecting well enough is being watched, because there is a deliberate attempt to fool satellites.

Saddam Hussein actually was reasonably successful with this back before the first war on the Persian Gulf — it looks like we may have a second one here, but before the Persian Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, back in 1991— so he does have experience with that. So as I say, Mr. Speaker, just to tie that back, if you then reveal when your satellites are passing overhead, and if you reveal what you have seen through those satellites, then it becomes obvious to the target the extent of the information that you have and, from that, they can conclude the extent that you don’t have and the intelligence capabilities of those satellites.

We have to consider in this whole debate whom we are talking about here. There seems to be certainly a large amount of frustration and a deep feeling of human compassion, which I commend him for, coming from the leader of the official opposition, but I am not comfortable with his comments in regards to the United States. I don’t feel they are appropriate. The suggestion and the wording of the motion here, which refers to the United States as a military power, is somewhat derogatory, and it is definitely very targeted, and we are talking about our greatest friend, our greatest ally. Then he follows up with criticism of Great Britain which, of course, is the other one of the two main countries who are driving the desire — desire probably isn’t the right word — but are behind the motions, going forward at the UN Security Council right now, to begin the process of military action in the Republic of Iraq.

The United States and Great Britain — these are our two greatest friends and our two greatest allies. We come, of course, from the tradition of British democracy. We are part of the British Commonwealth. Our head of state is the Queen, who is their head of state. We are deeply tied to Britain through our heritage, through our roots. We are deeply tied to the United States through our economic ties, through the fact that we share the longest undefended border in the world.

We have our people, Canadians, working in the United States. We’ve got the famous snow birds going down to Florida, or other southern climes of the United States in the winter, and returning to Canada in the summer months to maintain their residency status. We’ve got Americans working here. I have friends who are American who are living here. I have friends here — a couple of families that I know — good friends that moved here as Americans, and some of their children are American citizens and some are Canadian citizens — or actually, I believe those ones have dual citizenship because of their American parentage. But we’ve got within families Canadian and American citizens.

We share a common culture, common economic ties — and this culture issue, we often get divided into the idea that there is a strictly Canadian culture and a strictly American culture and any crossover between the two is somehow horrible and detrimental to Canada. Well, we look at the Hollywood industry, for example, the movie industry there, and there are a lot of Canadians who are heavily involved as actors, as directors, as owners of companies in this whole thing. So it’s one joint culture. But that’s a bit of a digression here.

But we are deeply linked with the United States. They are deeply linked with us. There’s that old famous saying, "When the United States sneezes, Canada catches a cold." Well, we are — we are so deeply linked that, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, the entire idea that this is an American issue, that threats to the United States are merely threats to the United States, is absolutely ridiculous — even before the threats by Mr. bin Laden that have come out recently specifically naming Canada on the list of countries to be targeted by the al-Qaeda.

I’d like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that a major thrust of the leader of the official opposition’s point seems to be the assumption that all this action, or proposed action, in Iraq is based on the concept that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are somehow linked here. Well, we don’t know if there’s a linkage. We’re told by the Americans that they have some suggestion now from intelligence sources that there may be a linkage. There may be; there may not. We don’t know. It didn’t seem to be that positive a statement coming from those intelligence services, but certainly it is not the main issue. The main issue here is that you have a country that has had numerous UN resolutions calling for them to disarm. They have jerked the UN around six ways from Sunday. They pretend to comply; they start to move forward; they get the inspectors out of Iraq; and then they change their direction. They’ve done this before. They’ve been fooling the UN and fooling inspectors for years. They’ve been hiding things; they’ve been booting out UN inspectors. And this has happened — 1991 was the war on the Persian Gulf, around about this time of year. I think it was on January 16, 1991 when they first began the attack and the aerial raids in the night hours of Baghdad time — so 12 years.

We’re talking about a country here. We know they had a nuclear program before. In fact, Israel, as part of their conflict with Iraq, had an F-16 raid back in the 1980s that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear plant. We know they had the program. France, which now is supposedly the great defender of all innocent people throughout the world in their positioning on the UN Security Council, was the seller of much of this nuclear information and technology to Iraq.

On that issue, I’d also like to point out that here we have the three leading countries that are opposing action in Iraq — they are Russia, France and Germany. Well, we always hear the argument, "Oh, the Americans are only interested in this for economic reasons." "It’s about the oil. It’s about this." Well, it’s usually the oil they stress, and there is also mention about how the U.S. has sold military technology to Iraq. Well, that’s true. And there is also a lot of oil in Iraq. That’s also true.

Mr. Speaker, the largest holder of rights to drill for oil within Iraq is Russia. The second largest holder is France. The largest supplier of military equipment to Iraq — if you look at what they have in their inventory — the largest supplier was Russia or, at the time, the Soviet Union. The second largest supplier was France. Russia is owed $12 billion U.S. in unpaid bills by Iraq.

Under the protocol — I can’t recall the exact name of it, but the international protocol that was first proposed in 1926 regarding the repudiation of debts incurred under a totalitarian regime — under that policy, which has international acceptance, this protocol accepts that debts that are incurred — sorry, I should give you a little background.

This protocol is accepted by the International Monetary Fund regarding what debts people — having overthrown a dictator, after a revolution — what debts they are required to pay and what debts they can throw out the window and which are immediately wiped clean.

And the acceptance in this protocol is that any debts that were incurred in oppressing the people, such as military equipment, or any debts that are for personal expenses, such as Mr. Hussein’s numerous lavish palaces, his bomb shelters are erased. And, of course the Republic of Iraq spends a tremendous amount on the military. The military under this protocol is considered an area that debts can be repudiated on. They do not apply — poof, out the window, as soon as a dictator is overthrown. So if Mr. Hussein is thrown out of power, this U.S. $12 billion that is owed to Russia — they don’t have to pay it. The International Monetary Fund acceptance, the banks accept that that’s wiped clean — gone. Russia can’t afford a $12-billion loss right now. They are just rebuilding their economy after the devastation that was caused during the communist era and the difficulty of moving from a communist system to a capitalist system. They can ill-afford that $12 billion. So they don’t want to see the government of Iraq thrown out there because their debts will be cancelled. And that’s not even talking about their oil interests. Under that — this is another thing – concessions and permits under this protocol issued by a regime — it’s considered you don’t have to pay them. The people overthrow a dictator, they don’t have to pay the debts, they don’t have to honour contractual obligations — it’s gone.

So I have to look at this and question how pure their motives are. Every major country involved in this — the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany — has economic interests in this. Germany was one of the major vendors of technology that the Iraqis used to develop their chemical and biological weapons.

So everyone is tied into this. Pureness of motives around this — well, there may be some of that, but among the big countries involved in this debate, it is pretty hard to call anyone’s motives pure. Everyone has an economic interest in Iraq regarding this. Every one of these countries sitting here having the debate on the Security Council — Russia and France threatening to use the veto power — they have good reason to use that veto power, because they’d lose money if Saddam Hussein was kicked out of power in Iraq.

So the oil interest from the United States — well, I am not going to say they have pure motives either but, in comparison, I am not sure that they actually look as bad when we look at that.

Irrespective of that, it doesn’t mean that the governments of any of these countries are acting purely based on those economic interests. Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t. We are not sitting at the Cabinet table of the United States or of Great Britain, France, Russia or Germany. I doubt that any members in this House have read a recent Hansard or their comparable counterpart from the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia or Germany within the last several months. We don’t know what their debates are, not only in Cabinet in those private forums, but in their public forum — in their legislatures, their assemblies, the Bundesrat and the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress. We don’t know what is going on.

If you don’t even know the issues that these countries are debating, and you only know what you have heard on the news — you’ve probably watched it on television, listened to it on the radio or maybe read the paper — I’d be surprised if any members in this House have surpassed that in research regarding this issue — by surpassed in research, meaning regarding the motives and the discussions that these countries are undergoing in their consideration of whether to support military action in Iraq.

Have you read the papers? Has anyone in this body — Mr. Speaker, I would be surprised if they have read the papers. Perhaps the Washington Times, maybe the London Times, but I’d be very surprised if anyone in this body has read any of the newspapers or listened to the TV reports or the radio reports or transcripts thereof, or translations from any of these countries we’re debating here, within the last several months. So it seems a little bit short-sighted, a little bit insular and a little closed-minded, Mr. Speaker, to think that we know what their motives are in this.

Regardless of that, we come down to the Canadian perspective. What is Canada’s direction? Regardless of the motives of our allies, of these other nations, Canada has to make the decision about what it will do — Canada, Mr. Speaker, not the Yukon Legislative Assembly. We’re not elected with that mandate. I was elected with what I consider a fairly strong mandate by my constituents, but I don’t feel they elected me to debate the Iraq issue, to decide whether Canada should support military action in Iraq. I never discussed that issue with them on the doorsteps. It never occurred to them, I’m sure, to ask whether I supported action in Iraq. It never came up on a single doorstep. So they didn’t have the option of deciding whether I represented their deepest beliefs on this, the beliefs in balancing information and the humanitarian concerns and the possible ramifications. I don’t have a mandate to pass a motion on Iraq to either support or oppose military action in that country.

I’d be very surprised if any member of this House received that mandate from their constituents — if they discussed this as a major issue. Possibly the leader of the opposition did raise this as an issue on doorsteps. Maybe he did. Maybe he does have the confidence of his constituents that they trust that his opinion on this issue represents their opinion. Or, maybe he has polled them individually, or gone around to everybody’s doorsteps since the election. Perhaps he has. But again, this is a jurisdictional issue.

Mr. Speaker, it is not our jurisdiction to deal with this. We have a Government of Canada which, depending on the time and the issues — we may have different views about whether they’re competent or not competent to decide this issue, but it’s not our business to tell them how to run things. We don’t want them to come here and tell us what to do with the Yukon placer authorization or how we should be managing our resources.

We don’t want them to revoke the Epp letter, which has been mentioned as an issue here. It is a problem under the Yukon Act that was recently passed. In the next 10 years, from the date of application, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has the ability to issue new instructions to the Commissioner, which destroys the principle that was outlined in the Epp letter of 1979 that gave the Yukon Legislature the exclusive ability to give instructions to the Commissioner. Mr. Speaker, for anyone who is listening and not familiar with this — as I’m sure you yourself are, Mr. Speaker — in Canada, the way we operate, the Commissioner in the Yukon, the Lieutenant Governors in the provinces, and the Governor General in Ottawa, are the actual instruments for implementing a decision.

We, as a legislative body, depending on the level, by acts or by constitution — or in our case, to some extent, just by letter — are guaranteed that the Commissioner, or the Lieutenant Governor or the Governor General will only act as we instruct them. Without that, we have a return to monarchy. Well, we do have a monarchy, but we have a departure from representative government is what I should say.

We have the tearing down of the Westminster conventions and the protocols that have been in place that were used in Westminster in Britain and used in the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa — used in every parliament and every legislature across this country. The principle is that the elected representatives have the exclusive ability to direct the representative of the Crown — to advise them officially — in what action should be taken.

But the new Yukon Act gives the ability for, once more, this power to be taken from this Legislature and to go back to the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs.

So, as I say, you can guess my distaste for that concept, my disagreement with it, and that’s one of the issues that has been mentioned when we discuss improving devolution.

But if we don’t want the federal government to intrude into our affairs, why are we intruding into theirs? We have a Member of Parliament, Mr. Bagnell — he is sent off to Ottawa to represent us. Maybe you agree with him, maybe you don’t, but he has the mandate from the people of the Yukon to be their representative in dealing with this issue, because this issue is very clearly a matter of (a) foreign policy, and (b) national defence, which are both exclusively the jurisdiction of the federal government to act in Canada’s best interest.

Some Hon. Member:   (Inaudible)

Mr. Cathers:   I hear the comment "freedom of speech" coming from the leader of the official opposition. I agree. Certainly I would not want to have any limits on what this Legislature could discuss and, if the leader of the opposition feels that this is an appropriate issue to bring up, then I commend him for doing so, if he feels it’s necessary.

I do, however, question the appropriateness and the relevance of this. As I pointed out, Mr. Speaker, I question whether any of us in this House have a mandate from our constituents to do so, because it is the mandate given by the people that counts. The power in a democracy is vested with the people, and power is delegated to their elected representatives on their behalf. I don’t believe we have been delegated the power, the right, to represent our constituents on this issue, and that’s my point on that. However, as I said, if the leader of the official opposition feels that he has been empowered and entrusted by his constituents to be their voice on this matter, then more power to him for doing so.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I’d like to go back to an issue that I’ve strayed from here — that it has been 12 years since the war in the Persian Gulf, 12 years of the Iraqi government under the leadership of Mr. Hussein, who, by the way, calls himself the president, 12 years of jerking the UN around by its leash, of pretending to comply, then reversing his track of kicking out UN inspectors, of letting them in, of playing every game in the book until finally he gets backed into a corner, and then he finds a way to weasel out of it again. It has been 12 years, and we’re talking about a country here. The issue of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons — the very question of the ability of any inspectors to locate those weapons is absolutely ridiculous when they’ve had 12 years to hide them in an entire country. As soon as the inspectors leave, they can go dig them out from wherever they hid them a decade ago.

It’s ridiculous. If you think of the area that we have in this territory and you image trying to hide a nuclear bomb — I believe it’s somewhere around the size of my desk here. You bury that in sand and, two weeks later, there isn’t even any evidence of it. The tracks are blown away; there’s nothing — nothing. Bury it in a concrete case, drop it in the desert — it’s gone. But with a GPS, you know exactly where you put it, you dig it up or you go to such and such an oasis with the three camels that were tied there and the skulls that are on the post — however they’ve got them marked. It’s not that hard for them to mark it, but it’s pretty darn hard to find it.

Now the members opposite may think, "Well, we’ve got this wonderful satellite intelligence — or we don’t have it, but our allies in the United States do." Well, that’s true, but do you have any idea how much information is coming in from these satellites from how many countries around the world? The ability to evaluate all that information — it’s almost impossible to do. You’re looking down at maybe grainy satellite imagery and you try and figure out what’s on the ground. Well, it sounds wonderful, but it’s very easy to overlook something like that. When you get into the entire issue of traffic and cities — you could hide it in the basement. You don’t know what’s in the back of a truck. You can’t tell if there is a nuclear bomb there when you look from the air. So you see these wonderful vehicles travelling there — it goes from one building to the next building, backs up to the loading dock, goes down to the other one, goes in there — you can’t look at every satellite frame, every image that you see and evaluate every parcel that someone is carrying, every vehicle that moves, every truck. It’s impossible — no nation can do it. As wonderful as electronic intelligence is, as satellite imagery is, it is not a miracle.

In fact, some of the problems faced in the area of intelligence-gathering, not specifically electronic intelligence but in the area of intelligence-gathering, are the fact that, following the Cold War, the United States government, particularly under former President Clinton’s watch, massively cut the resources to the human intelligence side of CIA and the military intelligence organizations. Well, "So what?" you say. The Cold War was over. Well, now we’ve discovered there’s a problem — that satellite imagery, electronic imagery and the gathering of radio frequencies, all these communications, can be done to deliberately fool a country.

Say, if you’re looking for a nuclear bomb, Mr. Speaker, and you see one moved and hidden in such a location, then great, we know where it is. Well, it turns out it was just a snow cone maker. I say that somewhat facetiously. Obviously, it is not a snow cone maker, but you don’t know what it actually turned out to be. It’s deliberately constructed to look like a nuclear weapon from the air. Particularly with satellite imagery, when you see what you expect to see, you don’t look further. It’s wonderful. You’ve fooled the satellite. Saddam Hussein is sitting there. The American government, in all its power and its glory, doesn’t realize that we just gave them this nice box here. They think it’s a nuclear weapon. Well, isn’t that wonderful. And they’ve done this, as I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, not with nuclear weapons but with tanks, with armoured personnel carriers. They did this during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. They had plywood cut-outs. In fact, I believe they even had heaters inside some of them to simulate the heat from a tank’s engine and fool the overhead satellites.

To a large extent, they were successful. Well, as you probably know, Mr. Speaker, they do have the ability to get closer images of this using remote-controlled drones, the unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, as they call them. They send them overhead, but they go at a very low speed. They are hard to detect, they don’t show up on radar, or not very easily, but if they’re detected, the Iraqis can blow them out of the air even with their massively restricted aerial defences. And you can only send so many of them. And, of course, if you bring this up here, well, there’s probably the issue of "Gee, the United States is sending flights over Iraq."

So, as I mentioned, intelligence information — we sit here and think, "Wow, we have watched all these movies about how all-powerful the United States government is; therefore, they must know everything that’s going on there. They probably know what brand of toilet paper every Iraqi uses." It isn’t quite the case. Or, as the member opposite pointed out, they probably don’t use toilet paper. But let’s not delve further into that issue.

So, Mr. Speaker, we’re about to possibly face military action in Iraq. I’m sure all of us watched on the news or listened to it or read it in the papers the other day when the Canadian ships were taken off — I’m sorry, I can’t recall the name of the vessel, but the one that the Sea King helicopter took off from and immediately crash-landed on the deck just outside of port.

In fairness to the Canadian government, they aren’t the only country that did this. Following the Cold War the whole world said, "Wow. It’s over. We saw the Berlin Wall topple and perestroika and glasnost. It’s over. It’s a kinder, gentler world." Well, that is wonderful; except it’s not. The problem was that all of these countries looked at this, and the politicians and the people disregarded the advice of their military — who of course — as happens in many departments, there can be a tendency to ruthlessly promote your side of the case and the desire for more funding, so they cut back funding. Canada did this; United States did this; every NATO country did this because, of course, the enemy we had faced for so many years, the Soviet Union, didn’t exist and it had massively cut back its military and couldn’t afford to pay the soldiers even.

So we butchered our military. At the end of World War II, Canada had the third largest navy in the world and the fourth largest standing army. Today, I believe the current number is 52,800 military personnel in all services in the Canadian Forces. During both World Wars, there were well over a million Canadians in service at any time — I can’t give you the exact numbers on that.

The United States, of course, which is roughly nine times our population, back in the 1991 conflict, I know their military standing armed forces were over a million in personnel — I don’t know the exact numbers today, but they cut it back as well.

So we didn’t see the problem. We didn’t think it was necessary to replace helicopters. We didn’t think it was necessary to buy new tanks, to replace the fighter aircraft, to replace the ships. In the year 2000, the Canadian government cut the Canadian Air Force from 564 operational aircraft to 282 — barely a whisper in the public. So it’s all well and good to blame the federal government for doing that — and I’m sure not going to defend them on that — but the Canadian public obviously really didn’t care that much at that time. Well, we’re maybe starting to see the reasons after September 11 and the concerns that we face now, and we realize that our military is in pretty rough shape. The lives of our service personnel are in danger just flying in their helicopters, let alone even considering embarking on combat operations.

I believe I mentioned previously in this House, Mr. Speaker, the fact that during the air show here we had four F-18 Hornet fighter jets from the Canadian Air Force sitting at the Whitehorse Airport, broken — 6.7 percent of our fighter group.

In 1984, I believe it was, when the order was placed for those F-18 aircraft — I believe they were delivered in 1985 — there were 132 of them ordered. It turned out there were problems with the air frames. So we have 60 operational. Canada also flies the C-130 Hercules. The model we fly they refer to as the H84, which was, I believe, ordered in 1983 and received in 1984. And Canada is still augmenting its fighter air force — certainly in the training realm — with the F-5 Freedom Fighter aircraft, which, by the way, for anyone who isn’t familiar, is an aircraft that was designed to be sold to the United States’ allies that were Third World countries. It’s a very bare bones aircraft. It doesn’t even have locational radar. It has targeting radar; that’s all. They don’t have GPS; they don’t have anything resembling modern targeting equipment. The only First World country that hasn’t scrapped them is Canada.

Canada spends less on its military than any one of our NATO allies except Luxemburg, and I’d challenge the members opposite — in fact, probably most of the members in this House — to even locate Luxemburg on a map, and I’d be interested to see what percentage would come up with its location. Luxemburg is much, much smaller than the Yukon. Of course, they have a larger population, but we’re talking about a country that would fit into one of our ridings — a tiny country. And they’re the only country in NATO that spends less than we do on the military.

You may recall, Mr. Speaker, the argument that was going on last year. It was mentioned in the national newspapers, on the radio and on TV, that the United States had a major dispute with its allies at the NATO conference because it felt it was shouldering an unfair burden of the NATO responsibility. The United States spends 1.5 times the amount spent on military by all its NATO allies put together — 1.5 times the amount of all its allies put together. I should clarify that that was as of last year. I don’t know the precise figures from the NATO allies for this year, but I do know that Canada would have to increase its yearly military expenditures by $13.6 billion — that’s billion, with a "b" — to come up to the NATO average.

Well, that’s interesting — $13.6 billion. And by the way, in case anyone — we toss around figures in the millions and billions; a billion dollars is a little over twice what the Yukon’s yearly budget is.

Some Hon. Member:   (Inaudible)

Mr. Cathers:   I hear some comments from the member opposite. It seems there is a little confusion on this. I’d be happy to discuss this with the opposition House leader at a different point, perhaps following the Legislature, if he’d like clarification on any of my points here. Although, feel free to ask questions during my comments here. I’d be happy to provide him with any information about this that doesn’t go on at too great a length.

Speaker:   Order please. There will be no questions or answers in this debate.

Mr. Cathers:   I apologize for that, Mr. Speaker, I was being facetious. I apologize if the members opposite or you interpreted this as being a serious suggestion.

So my point on this is, here we are, we figure we don’t need a military any more. Well, I think that the Canadian public — and, to its credit, the Government of Canada — are starting to realize differently, that too much has been cut from the military.

I spoke a little bit about what the Canadian military operates for its vehicles. We’ve all heard touted the Coyote reconnaissance vehicles, which were touted because they are about Canada’s only new piece of military hardware — actually, I think they really are. We just purchased three diesel subs from Great Britain. There was a reason why Great Britain was selling them — they were diesel submarines. They were leaky. So we buy our new, leaky, state-of-the-art diesel submarines that were moth-balled by the British. In comparison, the United States and Britain are operating nuclear submarines. The reason for this is the ability to operate — the ability to be silent — which is the primary goal of a submarine: to be silently in place so no one has any idea where your military assets are and whether they’re being tracked by you or not. The United States has been very successful at this with their recent classes of submarines.

But we have diesel subs.

We’ve ignored our military and now our soldiers are paying the price. Every time they’re put forward in combat operations, they are at risk.

I definitely share the member opposite’s concern over the possibility that Canadian soldiers will be going into harm’s way, and the possibility that other people are being risked in this — that the civilians of Iraq may pay the price.

Mr. Speaker, it’s a good argument. It also needs to be noted that the civilians of Iraq pay the price every single day for Mr. Hussein’s actions. He is not a nice person. He’s not a good dictator, if there is such a thing as a good dictator, although he refers to himself as the president, so democracy, as was pointed out by the leader of the official opposition, is something that doesn’t apply to every country in the world.

He stated statistics of the percentage of countries in the world that are now democratic, and I can’t take up that argument with him. I don’t know the details on these countries. But democracy isn’t a universal issue. The communists had elections. They had elections every year, and no, despite what we think here, they didn’t just have one candidate. They actually had other candidates. They weren’t allowed to win. They were only allowed to get less than a tenth of a percent of a vote, but it was made clear to the world community that no, we’re not some horrible regime here that shuts out the citizens; we’re democratically elected communists.

A friend of mine came from Czechoslovakia, which now, of course, is the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, but it was Czechoslovakia for many years during its Communist days. He was a newspaper reporter. Well, he was young. I believe he was about 21 at the time, and according to him, he felt like he was on top of the world. He was very cocky, and he criticized the government. That was okay for a little bit, and then Russia came in to rescue Czechoslovakia — sorry, I have my chronology mixed up. He was initially — in the early days of setting it up, he was under the Czechoslovakian government. He was imprisoned. Then there was an amnesty when a new leader came into place. He was put in prison for his comments — a prisoner of war camp.

He told me that he had this surreal experience of doing things like cleaning out sewers without any gloves — with a scrub brush. He would be standing there with all this excrement on the walls. And they were political prisoners. He was with philosophers, professors, and some of the brightest intellectuals in Czechoslovakian society. He told me that one time they were discussing Plato, and as he’s scrubbing away at the wall of this sewer, he brushed an itch on his face and realized what his hands were in.

And he had the lovely experience of cracking uranium without any protection. To this day, if you ran a Geiger counter over him, it would probably go off like crazy.

But these guys had elections. Sure, they silence political dissidents — but they had elections. So, it’s possible that not all democracies are created equal and President Saddam Hussein would probably list some very good arguments, along with his arguments about why invasion is not justified, despite his lack of compliance over 12 years. He’d probably have some very good arguments on how well he is supported by his people and how the people of Iraq love him, even though he’s gassed over 10,000 Kurds — the Kurdish minority, which I believe is basically an Animist religion, and it’s also an ethnic minority in northern Iraq and also into Turkey.

He has gassed over 10,000 of them because he doesn’t like their religion, because he thought they were a threat to him. Well, that’s political intolerance, but he probably has a really good reason for it, Mr. Speaker. So we’re in here, we’re in a debate that has sort of settled down between what the Iraqi government is saying and what the United States is saying in the issue over this allegedly evil, military dictatorship of the United States going in to take out that really nice dictator, who has only massacred 10,000 or so of his citizens. Let’s remember who our friends are on this, but there is a very big difference between remembering who our friends are and accepting everything they say.

I pointed out that the dispute with the United States is a reasonable thing. But let’s keep the level of debate civil. Let’s not characterize them as some horrible dictatorship or horrible military power or something like this horrible, roughshod government in power in the United States is just running over the whole world in their desire for power and oil revenue. That’s ridiculous. And aligned with them is Great Britain. As I mentioned, our two greatest friends of any nation in the entire world, the two greatest defenders of democracy in the history of the world are the United States and Great Britain. That doesn’t mean every aspect of their foreign policy is necessarily right — it doesn’t mean it’s anointed by God or angels or something because they say it, but let’s not demonize them here. These are our two greatest friends in the entire world, our two greatest allies — our greatest trading partner and the other country, Great Britain, being the country from which we take our entire parliamentary history, the history of our laws, of our common laws, of our Constitution and, to this date still, we have Her Majesty the Queen as our head of state.

These guys are the bad guys, right? I don’t believe that. So if we’re going to disagree with them, I would urge all the members in this House and encourage all Canadians to argue civilly with it. If you don’t agree with it, fine, but let’s be civil on all sides of this issue. Let’s be civil, let’s be respectful. If the United States feels it is necessary and if Great Britain feels it is necessary to take military action in Iraq, they are saying that because they believe it is necessary for their security interests, for the interests of their people — which, by the way, we are so deeply tied to, it isn’t funny.

I heard the leader of the opposition refer to a lecture the other night by Mr. Gwynne Dyer. As you may know — in fact, I found to my surprise that it was mentioned in the paper that I had attended. I was at that lecture. It was very well-presented. I commend Mr. Dyer for that. He has obviously done a lot of research on this and he’s a very convincing speaker. He made some very good arguments as to the dangers of taking action in Iraq. He mentioned the possibility that al-Qaeda has sought this direction. He mentioned that, when the bombings of the American embassies took place in Sudan and Kenya, I believe it was, by al-Qaeda, the President at the time, Mr. Clinton, was having a little bit of a domestic crisis — which you know the nature of, but I am sure that commenting on it is neither parliamentary nor appropriate.

So Mr. Clinton was coming up, I believe 10 days before his arraignment on the charges of perjury, and there were the attacks on the American Embassy and 24 Americans were killed, and Mr. Dyer brought up the very excellent point that President Clinton seemed to say, "Great, we’ve got an issue here, a national security issue. I can take the focus off this." He fired 75 cruise missiles at different countries, including the famous destruction of a pharmaceutical plant, which had to do with pill manufacturing but nothing to do with chemical warfare, which they thought it was. But they needed an attack and they needed it quickly. So Mr. Dyer’s argument — and a very good one was — perhaps Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda buddies were sitting around the campfire — or, at that time, they probably had a nice house to sit around on the floors of in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime — and said, "Boy, look what has happened here. Twenty-four Americans are killed and they overreact and fire out all these missiles. What would happen if we blow up something like the World Trade Center and kill a few thousand people? Think of the American reaction."

Mr. Dyer’s argument was that the desire in this is to achieve regime change in the Arab nations, because they are controlled by governments that are Islamic, but not Islamic fundamentalists, and the Islamic fundamentalists in every one of those countries has the desire to kick out those regimes and replace them with a radical regime. Mr. Dyer argued that the radicals are not supported by anything resembling a large portion of the population.

But those radicals, the only way they could achieve it is by fooling the public into revolting and rioting in the streets, getting a million people in the streets, and his suggestion was that al-Qaeda’s thought process and their strategy on this might be: "We blow up the World Trade Centre. The United States will react at random again, causing much destruction, and it will bring the people of the Arab nations in revolt against their governments as puppets of this horrible American regime that just threw bombs out at random in their countries." He could be right. His argument was that this was playing into their hands, that an attack in Iraq would cause the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Sharon, to respond if Iraq fired weapons at Israel.

As you’re aware, the last time, in 1991, Iraq did fire weapons at Israel but the United States had used the full weight of its diplomatic pressure and talked very seriously with the Israeli government and achieved their cooperation and their agreement that they would not fire back at Iraq, no matter what happened.

So, a few Scud missiles landed there and there wasn’t a tremendous devastation that took place. Scuds, of course, are not a very effective weapon, and we all heard the radio clips and saw the TV shots of the Patriot missile systems destroying the scud missiles — as a point of interest for you, Mr. Speaker, the Patriots themselves are not actually that accurate a missile system. They fire a number of missiles out to hit an incoming ballistic target and the rate of failure is actually pretty high, but it was the first system that was actually significantly effective in taking a ballistic missile out of the sky, coming in at that speed and on that track.

Let’s go back to the issue of Mr. Dyer’s comments. He suggested that it would be a different affair this time if there was action in Iraq, that, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sharon, there’s no way Israel would stay out of this crisis if they were fired at. They would immediately respond, and we’ve all heard the discussions and the concerns that took place back in 1991 and at other times about the — my train of thought just got hijacked, apparently, here.

So Mr. Dyer’s suggestion that Israel would respond is a serious possibility, though I was disappointed that, along with his excellent arguments, he was making a lot of what I felt were very positive statements — positive, I mean as in definitive, and I found this a little baffling, because I would be extremely shocked if Mr. Dyer is privy to the United States’ intelligence information, to Britain’s intelligence information, to Canada’s intelligence information, yet it seemed to me that he was expressing that he knew all the factors in this, all the concerns, seemed to know the diplomatic efforts, as well, what Mr. Sharon would do. It’s interesting. As I said, he gave a very persuasive and very excellent argument on the danger of trying to proceed with regime change in Iraq and the possible effect on the surrounding area.

But he completely ignored the issue of the non-compliance by Mr. Hussein and the Iraq government with the UN resolutions dating back to 1991. He completely failed to mention it and totally illustrated this as an issue regarding the possibility of an al-Qaeda connection with Iraq, which he dismissed as impossible — or he didn’t say "impossible". I should be accurate here, but he seemed to feel it was highly unlikely. I can’t comment on that. I don’t have access to that intelligence information.

I’ve commented before, though, Mr. Speaker, on the danger of any one of us making a positive, definitive statement or strongly lobbying on any issue — any one of us, any citizen, of doing this — with only a small part of the information before us. It is very dangerous. This is not child’s play. This is not some model parliament issue to debate — should we invade this country or should we not? What will we do? Okay, I say we invade; I say we don’t invade; and then the teacher marks you at the end. We’re talking about nuclear and biological weapons here.

The United States government is obviously very concerned about the possibility that these weapons may be created and that, once created, they’re very easy to transport. The leader of the official opposition referred to the fact that Iraq doesn’t have the ability to deploy nuclear, biological or chemical weapons through their military technology. He’s correct on that. They do not have the ability to deploy that beyond the immediately surrounding area. They have no possibility of reaching Canada or the United States with their military technology firing a nuclear, biological or chemical missile.

But can we forget what is going on here? Do you remember the discussions — you, Mr. Speaker, I should clarify that — on the issues that we’ve been talking about post-September 11 about the lack of customs inspectors at ports, the relative ease of slipping terrorists or material in via containership or a small vessel from international waters? We have the longest coastline in the world. Even through a port, it’s pretty easy to slip something in because of the lack of customs inspectors.

You bring in a container, say, of clothing from Indonesia, which is one of the main al-Qaeda bases — or countries where they exist, I should clarify, Mr. Speaker — bring in a load of clothing manufactured there and, possibly at the bottom, you throw in a chemical, nuclear or biological weapon. It’s not that hard to do. You think they’re going to empty out the entire container? They don’t have that time or those resources. Our customs inspectors can’t do that. As we’ve heard, the equipment that they have for testing for the presence of these things is — it doesn’t exist. It only is deployed in Canada in a few places.

Much like September 11, we are getting locked into a box here — a previous mentality, a Cold War idea, the idea that we had with the aircraft hijacking September 11 was — oh, a hijacking is obviously for hostages or for money or something here. They’ve taken the hostages for either money or a political objective — and it turned out they were crashing them into the buildings there.

Much like this, they don’t have to deploy these weapons. There is no military in the world that can stand up to the United States.

They don’t have the ability to deploy military technology over here, to drop nuclear weapons or send biological weapons in here, but a container ship isn’t that hard. It has been said before: "We don’t want the smoking gun that Iraq has these weapons." We don’t want that smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud — and there is that possibility, and it’s all too real. Balanced with that is this concern: what happens if you attack? What if Israel gets drawn in? Even without that, what’s the effect on the region? And the Arab people of the region, what do they feel about this foreign involvement in their affairs — the foreign military involvement in their area? What’s the reaction to that? There’s a real risk either way. You’re dancing on a high wire and, either way, if you fall out, you’re landing on rocks.

But the United States, Canadian and British governments — and Russia, France, Germany — every government in the world has to evaluate the possible risks involved in doing this. What if we proceed? What are those risks? What if we don’t proceed, and they’re allowed to proceed with their development programs? What happens?

Well, we don’t know what happens. They don’t know what happens either. But we are very poorly equipped in this Legislature to stand here and decide what the right course of action is because we don’t even have the barest hint or whiff of intelligence information. As I spoke about earlier, it’s very doubtful that anyone here has even read the public record from these other nations and what their concerns are.

So as I spoke of it, with Mr. Dyer’s lecture, it was a very good argument, but on one side of the issue. We’ve got to listen to all sides, and our role, to clarify, as I see it, in listening to all sides, is as Canadian citizens, not as Members of the Legislative Assembly. You’ve got to remember what your mandate is.

You know, we see here the wording of the motion that refers to a war on the people of Iraq. Saddam Hussein, as I mentioned, has gassed his own people, he’s known for seeing a likely female walking down the street and having her snatched by his bodyguards, taking her and — you know what I’m referring to, Mr. Speaker, but — taking her and raping her. He’s known for this. And if he likes her, maybe she gets coin in her pocket and goes back home. Otherwise, she has her throat slit and is dumped in the Euphrates, but that’s okay, he’s not that bad a guy, apparently.

In some times, the idea of a people revolting against a leader such as Mr. Hussein, of throwing out a tyrant, a revolution like that would be called — they’d be called freedom fighters. If they did that, I suspect that the leader of the official opposition and all the members opposite would be the first to stand up and wave the flag about commending the wonderful freedom fighters of Iraq for overthrowing this horrible regime and establishing a democracy, or whatever they establish, for simply getting rid of Mr. Hussein. Do you have any idea of how many thousands of them would die in that process?

So, one might call it — there’s the argument that it could be an act of kindness to go and remove this fellow for them.

We are so poorly equipped in this Legislature to deal with this issue regarding the information we have that it isn’t funny. As I say, Mr. Speaker, I was baffled to see this come forward. I’m glad the leader of the official opposition has understood that.

Let me elaborate on Mr. Hussein’s connection to terrorism, as this is being pooh-poohed. In the year 2000, national Canadian newspapers — it was probably also on TV but I saw it in the newspaper — mentioned that Saddam Hussein was offering, publicly, on Iraqi television, $25,000 U.S., or the equivalent of that — I believe he was offering it in their currency — $25,000 U.S. to any family who would send a child of theirs to go and be a suicide bomber in Israel. But he doesn’t have any connections to terrorism. That was just his public announcement on TV. Unfair press, or something.

So, it has already been established that this is a fellow who’s willing to do this, to pay terrorists to go out and murder innocent people as a political statement. Can you imagine if one of those suicide bombers walked down the street of New York or Toronto or Vancouver with a chemical agent strapped to them, or a nuclear weapon — it would be difficult to carry a nuclear weapon but not quite impossible, but it wouldn’t be that hard to carry a nerve gas age