Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois will oppose this motion. It is not because it does not entirely agree with having Norad as a defence organization, but it opposes the motion, which would make Norad:
—a viable defence organization to counter threats to North America, including the threat of ballistic missile attack—
The motion continues:
—support giving Norad responsibility for the command of any system developed to defend North America against ballistic missiles.
The Bloc Quebecois cannot approve the U.S. administration's missile defence plan, particularly since this motion is very broad.
The Bloc Quebecois supported the decision not to take part in the war in Iraq, even if Canada found ways to soften the impact of its refusal on the United States by participating in other ways.
Now that Canada has shown the courage of its convictions, it should continue to do so and state that peace requires greater multilateralism, instead of signing up for something based on the use of force to ensure security.
That is, in fact, what we are talking about. The main problem with the missile defence plan, now that the 1972 treaty signed with Russia is no longer in effect, is that it wil renew the arms race at a time when funds available to the U.S. government, Americans and people around the world are needed to fight terrorism. There are breeding grounds where extremist groups promote hate and threaten security in many countries.
I first want to say that we do not believe that refusing to take part in the missile defence plan undermines Norad.
Why would the United States deprive itself of information from the 47 radar systems in the north, for instance, on Canadian soil? Far from diminishing the importance of Norad's air capabilities, it increases them. There have been ten thousand joint air missions since September 11, 2001. In 2001-02, Norad detected 2.5 million planes and intercepted 70 of these, 11 of which were suspected of transporting drugs. Suddenly, because Canada had refused to be part of the missile defence plan, Washington would decide to put an end to all that? We refuse to believe this.
In fact, since September 11, 2001, as foreign affairs critic, I have been concerned with peace and security issues.
I thought to myself, “The whole world, Americans in particular, saw 19 men with exacto knives take control of large American aircraft, point them at New York's twin towers—we do not really know if they were also targeting the Pentagon in Washington—and hit another target in Washington, without any outside help”.
After that happened, I thought, “Clearly this whole missile defence plan is going to be scrapped; they will be focusing on a threat that is no longer theoretical, but one that has been carried out suddenly and unexpectedly, provoking incredible shock everywhere, including in Montreal and here and around the world, killing some 3,000 people”. The exact number is not known, but 3,000 is a staggering figure. It was a great shock.
So by what trick of magic are we all of a sudden faced with this very real threat, the root cause of which we now know is fed by various sources, and bred for the most part in countries that are poor, rife with unresolved conflicts, humiliation and underdevelopment? Of course, the relationship is not as simple as that.
The World Bank just released a remarkable study that we should look at, which demonstrates that unprevented civil wars are causing dramatic damage everywhere. We need only look at the situation across most of Africa, unfortunately.
Let us look at what is happening in Iraq. The war itself caused significant damage, but what about the damage resulting from a society in disarray? There was all kinds of military planning involved, but clearly, the coalition was not prepared to re-establish the social fabric. The damage is not yet known, nor will it be for some time. However, we know that it will be felt in health, social services, security, education, culture and so on. And there will be a great many dead. There are the children, for example, who do not have access to drinking water and who will die of dysentery. There is talk of cholera in southern Iraq.
So as we can see, there are real threats, and here we have considerable financial resources being put toward this missile defence plan by the U.S. administration.
I would like to underscore that the missile defence plan, far from guaranteeing the security of the United States, Canada or the world, is a surefire way to threaten security, because it will renew the arms race and because it will militarize space with nuclear weapons, based on what we know.
First, we see that this technology is still unreliable, a fact that was just confirmed by a prominent scientist, who for the past 40 years has seen a succession of missile and missile defence technologies.
This scientist, Mr. Polanyi, has seen repeated scientific defence projects such as Sentinel and so on, that, after being praised by the defence community, are later thrown out. There have been many such projects in the past 40 years.
At this time, even the U.S. administration admits that fundamental elements of the first phase of the missile defence plan—which is supposed to be land and sea-based—are not ready. Not only are they not ready, the U.S. says they are not even ready to be tested.
We are talking about technology that has been confirmed to be unreliable. A look at the statistics from the past three years—approximately—shows that three out of eight tests failed even though the exact location, the time of liftoff, the trajectory and the final destination were known. All this cost more than $60 billion, U.S. of course.
By definition, a missile defence plan cannot know in advance where the threat might come from. I use might, because we are going to address potential threats shortly. So, on this level alone, we must admit that the technology is still dubious. Professor Polanyi went on to say that, judging by what he had seen, it is not even particularly promising. We will let him speak. We will hear from the scientists later.
I did not hear the minister speak, but I have heard enough of the arguments in favour of the plan to know that new threats from the rogue states, or failed states as they are sometimes known, and from terrorists have been used as a justification.
What can we say about this? It must be kept in mind that Iraq seemed to be the major world menace before the war. Now, two months after the fact, there is no trace of weapons of massive destruction to be found. After the war in Iraq—in which no trace of weapons of massive destruction were found—I said to myself, “Well, there you are, the missile defence plan will be dropped and energies will be focused on truly addressing terrorism and those that support it”.
In that context, we cannot help but be extremely disappointed that Canada is sanctioning it by committing to a series of discussions on which even our colleagues across the floor are far from unanimous, while realizing that this will discourage those in the U.S who are opposed to the project, not merely to the militarization of space.
How can anyone think of putting all these resources, all this energy, into waiting until North Korea, for example—which is far from having that capability—attains it? Will we leave North Korea alone and not do anything? Why do we not use the strongest weapon for peace, which is multilateralism?
On reflection, it seems to me that everyone ought to say that the inspectors were very effective in Iraq. Why do we not apply international pressure to force those states which have begun and undoubtedly will step up arms production to stop doing so, to disarm?
When I ask this question, I know full well that if Canada gets on the missile defence system bandwagon, it will confirm that there is only one thing for states to do, and that is to arm themselves. I can only remind the House that when there were two great powers, for many years their resources were used to prevent possible attack and to make themselves stronger before such an attack. They finally realized that this balance of terror was eating up an extraordinary amount of energy and money. They decided to sign a treaty to end all that and reduce defences.
The problem is that today we are faced with the American administration's initiative, as influenced by the powerful think-tanks which have invaded vast sectors of American society. At present, the pendulum has swung back to settling problems by force.
Even in Iraq, we have seen that Saddam is, in fact, gone. But when will that society, having already suffered greatly, again be able to take hold of its destiny, find its own leaders, and become democratic? It may be that when it does do so, it will elect the kind of leaders the Iranians elected. What will the American administration do then?
It is urgent to keep the need for multilateral action—including prevention—in the spotlight. We should heed the advice of the World Bank and prevent conflicts. The necessary funding has to be put into international development and the fight against AIDS. There are millions of people dying. Kofi Annan asked for $10 million to fight AIDS, which is pandemic in Africa. All he could get was $2 million.
We are in favour of Norad, but against the Alliance's motion. We will continue to speak out so that instead of restarting the arms race, the world will begin a multilateral race for peace.