Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will share my time with my colleague, the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.
The military operation in Libya is, in a sense, the culmination of the evolution of the United Nations and international law, an evolution in which, I am proud to say, Canada has been involved many times on different levels.
As we know, this is the first time that the responsibility to protect has been invoked and carried out under the United Nations Security Council. Two other countries, Russia and France, have invoked this principle, but only as individual countries, and without the support of other nations.
As I said, this is a first, and Canada has been involved in the evolution towards the responsibility to protect. We should be proud of that.
Initially, we learned of the unacceptable violence and cruelty that Colonel Gadhafi was inflicting on his people from the media, but it is also through the International Criminal Court, more specifically the hard work of its chief prosecutor, that we have learned more about what is going on in the country and have been able to further justify our military involvement in Libya.
It is through the International Criminal Court and its chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, that we have been able to gather detailed evidence, in some cases provided by human rights groups, of Colonel Gadhafi's crimes against his people. In fact, by way of example, I will just read a quote from Mr. Moreno-Ocampo. In a news conference in The Hague a while back, he stated this about Colonel Gadhafi's forces:
His forces attacked Libyan civilians in their homes and in public spaces, shot demonstrators with live ammunition, used heavy weaponry against participants in funeral processions, and placed snipers to kill those leaving mosques after prayers.
I will digress for a moment to talk about the International Criminal Court, the role that Canada played in the establishment, and, more specifically, the role that a Liberal government and a Liberal foreign minister, who is well-known, Lloyd Axworthy, of the International Criminal Court since its work is so important in respect of this mission.
As members know, Canada played a pivotal role in the establishment of the court. It chaired a coalition of states called The Like-Minded Group, that helped to motivate the wider international community to adopt the Rome Statute.
Canada also contributed to the United Nations trust fund that enabled lesser-developed countries to participate in International Criminal Court negotiations.
I would add that it was a senior diplomatic, Philippe Kirsch, who was chosen by acclamation, which is quite an honour, to chair the committee of the whole at the diplomatic conference in Rome that was held in June and July 1998.
As I mentioned, Minister Axworthy was very much behind international support for the court.
It should also be mentioned that Mr. Kirsch was instrumental in drafting the final global proposal for the International Criminal Court.
Canada, under a Liberal government, was the fourteenth country to sign the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
On June 29, 2000, Canada enacted the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, becoming the first country in the world to adopt comprehensive legislation implementing the Rome Statute.
Finally, on July 7, 2000, Canada ratified the Rome Statute.
The International Criminal Court has played a significant role in the current developments in Libya, and Canada was very much involved with the court.
That brings me to the responsibility to protect. Here again, former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy played a very important role, taking initiative from the wisdom and knowledge we had gained as a country, especially in Rwanda.
As members know, Minister Axworthy created a body called the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, an international United Nations group, that was asked to delve into this question of how we would get away from the original idea behind the United Nations, which was created in a cold war climate. The original idea was that we must never intervene in the sovereignty of a sovereign state because that would provoke war. However, in a post-cold war international environment, those considerations are lessened. Also, in a post-cold war international environment, we see that many of the conflicts are civil wars and many of the conflicts involve governments turning on their own people, as Colonel Gadhafi's government has done.
Lloyd Axworthy launched this international effort because he did not believe that in a civilized world we could allow dictators to simply massacre their own people. The problem was it was important that the idea be accepted by more than just a few western countries.
In 2005, the African Union included the concept of the responsibility to protect in its charter. All of a sudden the idea started to gain traction and, in 2006, the UN Security Council agreed to have this doctrine become part of international law.
My main point is that this mission in Libya is very much an extrapolation, if I may, of the role Canada has played in the international community, of the leadership that it has shown.
We need to be careful when we talk about the responsibility to protect R2P because it is still viewed with suspicion by many less developed countries that have a history of colonialism. They see the responsibility to protect as perhaps a pretext that could be used by countries that would want to intervene in unjustifiable circumstances to promote their interests. It could also be used by factions in a civil war situation where an unscrupulous warlord, for example, would provoke a crisis so that he could get some help from outside intervention.
We need to protect Canada's reputation as a peace-loving country, as a non-imperialist country. We need to protect Canada's reputation by being careful in how we participate in these kinds of missions. Canada's reputation is sterling and we have taken many years to build it up.