Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests. It is indeed an honour to have you here today, and we are well resourced with your briefs and also your backgrounds.
It is depressing sometimes to look at how far we had come, and in what direction we are going. That's certainly in your brief, and for anyone looking at this issue, part of our challenge is that people have decided that this isn't an important issue. Nothing could be further from the truth, as you mentioned in the quote about sleepwalking into this.
Not to mention that when you have people of the stature and background of Misters Schultz, Nunn, Perry, and Kissinger, this isn't an ideological issue. This is a humanitarian issue, and that was clear from their op-ed. I'm absolutely delighted that they provided the world community with their opinion, because it's worth hearing.
What we're trying to establish here is Canada's position. I know that from Hansard, on May 17 in the House, Mr. O'Connor said to the Speaker in response to a question, “Mr. Chair, we are a member of NATO and we stand by NATO's policies. NATO, at this stage, has no policy of disarming from nuclear weapons.” Then in response to the person asking the question, he went on to say, “As the member knows, Canada chose, back in 1945 when we participated in creating the nuclear weapons, not to have nuclear weapons. That is our national stand.”
This kind of underlines the confusion here. I don't say that to embarrass anyone, because it's what you've already laid out. On the one hand, we are saying that as a nation state, Canada, we are not in favour of the use of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, we have this dilemma with NATO, and it's so critically important that Canada use its role in NATO to establish a position. We can do that without compromising. We can do it by way of stating—and I think your point is an excellent one—a declaration of principle that can be adopted within NATO.
My question to start with, maybe to you, Mr. Roche, is how can we do that? This is a goal—I think there'd be a consensus amongst everyone—that we should attain, but how do we do that within NATO?