Thank you, Mr. Dosanjh. You pose a challenge to us to name the single most important thing.
There is a range of things that have to be done. But when Hans Blix was asked that very question as the chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, whose report came out about a year ago—and I know he was here in Ottawa—he was asked, of all his 60 recommendations that are in this report, which is the single most important, he said unhesitatingly that it was to get the comprehensive test ban treaty ratified to shut off nuclear testing everywhere in the world.
Therefore, I would have to say in answer to your question that the single thing, if you forced me to confine it to one, would be for Canada to press the United States to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty. I went through an unfortunate experience in 1999 when the U.S. Senate actually voted against the ratification of the CTBT. I won't go into all the reasons for that, but it certainly revolved around a lot of domestic issues that do not pertain at this time.
So if we want to stop North Korea from testing, or anybody else, we have to have a universal regime. There are 10 states that are required under the terms of the CTBT—there are 44 altogether and there are 10 remaining—that have to ratify. It is my belief that were the United States to revisit this, and there are some signs that they may be willing to revisit it in the next administration starting in 2009, the other states that have still to ratify it would fall in line.
So I think Canada should put pressure on the United States to do this. It's in the interests of the United States as well as in the interests of everybody else to have a world in which nuclear testing is a thing of the past.