Voting for peace!
Five questions to ask your candidate at your door or at an all-candidates meeting during federal election 2000.
The questions are based on the input of individuals and groups across Canada who participated in the People's Commission on Global Security: Canada's Role consultation in June 2000. The report of the People's Commission will be released soon after the election. For more information about the People's Commission process and report, follow this link.
The Canadian Peace Alliance sent the questionnaire to the five major political parties in this election, the Bloc quebecois, the Canadian Alliance party, the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. We present their answers via the links below, marked 'party responses.'
1. Sanctions Against Iraq
Given that: ten years of sanctions against Iraq have had little effect on the regime, but devastated the lines of ordinary people in Iraq, depriving them of essential food and medical supplies, and resulting in over a million deaths, three quarters of whom were children under five years of age;
will you, if elected, press the Government of Canada to lift all non-military sanctions against Iraq and to urge other countries to do likewise?
2. National Missile Defence
Given that: Canada may be asked to joint US plans for a new version of Star Wars, known as National Missile Defense (NMD), which is opposed by all other major countries, violates international law, and would lead to an arms race in space;
will you, if elected, work to ensure that the Government of Canada is in no way complicit with this or any other proposal for the weaponisation of space and that Canada officially oppse the US National Missile Defense program?
3. Nuclear Convention
Given that: we live with more than 30,000 nuclear weapons, the only weapons of mass destruction not yet banned by international agreement, and that 92% of Canadians want their government to play a leading role in achieving a ban on nuclear weapons, just as it did in banning landmines;
will you, if elected, press the Government of Canada to work urgently with other governments for an international convention that would ban nuclear weapons as biological and chemical weapons are banned?
4. Military Spending
Given that: the Department of National Defence (DND) budget was increased in 1999 and 2000, despite being the largest departmental budget, and that the Auditor General's fall report criticizes the Government for failing to inform Parliamentarians fully about Canada's military capabilities, making it impossible for them to assess the department's budgetary needs,
will you, if elected, advocate that DND's budget receive no further increases until there is full disclosure and a public review of military spending priorities and the role of the Canadian Armed Forces?
5. Weapons Trade
Given that: the international weapons trade rivals the drug trade in creating human victims and that our taxes are used to subsidise Canadian participation in this unethical business;
will you, if elected, work to eliminate government funding of Canadian involvement in the arms trade?
Visit the Peace is an Election Issue site for more questions to put to federal candidates!