FAIT Committee Report

The Bloc Québécois played an active and constructive part in the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. As frequently happens, the Bloc often had to assume the role that would normally fall to the Official Opposition. During the study of the Committee’s report on Kosovo, the Bloc proposed a series of amendments to the initial report, of which a majority were accepted. The Bloc Québécois, generally speaking, endorses the Report. Unfortunately, it contains one major omission, which the Government party was unwilling to correct. The Bloc Québécois estimates that no permanent solution to the conflict that opposes Kosovars and Serbs within the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will be possible without recognition of the right to self-determination of the Kosovar people.

The use the Kosovars make of that right is no business of anyone but themselves, as long as they respect democracy and the rights of their minorities. Will they spend their future in an independent Kosovo? Will they live in a province of a federal Republic of Yugoslavia that respects their rights and their unique traits? It is up to them to decide. On the other hand, it is up to the international community, and in particular the member countries of NATO, to help them along the road they choose and to assist them in rebuilding their society. Without this recognition of their right to self-determination, the international community, which is currently shouldering the difficult task of administering the territory on an interim basis, runs the risk of being transformed in the eyes of the Kosovars into an occupying power that does not respect the will of the people.

This would be a tragedy, both for the Kosovars and for the credibility of the UN, which we must and can avert. The Liberal government, in the grip of its Canadian unity obsession, has managed to forget this simple truth: people have the right to determine their political future. If the international community, and especially Canada, do not put all their influence to support this right, regional conflicts will only proliferate in the future. And Canada will have no one to blame but itself.