Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before this committee.
Albert Einstein advised his physics students that concern for humanity must form the chief interest of all technical endeavours. This would equally apply to all of us here. The call for science and technology to be practised with conscience is the basis of our organization. Science for Peace and its sister organization, the Canadian Pugwash Group, are devoted to both reducing the negative impact of science and technology and increasing the positive peaceful role.
Last Friday, the draft cluster bomb treaty was adopted by 111 nations in Dublin. It provides a much-needed step in limiting human barbarity caused by those sophisticated tools of destruction. We hope Canada will pass laws to implement the strictest export regime for parts that could be used in cluster munitions and find ways to make the treaty robust and effective. More generally, we urge Canada to apply science and technology to arms control, peacekeeping, and humanitarian causes. For instance, we suggest that the government's arms control verification program be re-established and that treaty verification research be incorporated into the work of Defence Research and Development Canada, or DRDC.
Our country's most advanced global monitoring asset Radarsat-2 could help these causes. We thank the committee for any influence it might have had on the decision to stop the sale of Radarsat-2 to U.S. arms manufacturer Alliant Techsystems, whose munitions, incidentally, include cluster bombs.
Canada must now give support to MDA, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., develop the Radarsat constellation of satellites, and space recognisance generally. We advise that the Government of Canada help the UN by providing it with the results of Canadian science and technology.
Your fellow parliamentarian, Senator Roméo Dallaire, complained about being deaf and blind in the field when he was force commander in Rwanda. New technologies can help immensely, serving as the eyes and ears of the United Nations as it tries to solve complex conflicts in some of the world's greatest hot spots.
The figure you see in this handout illustrates the range of Canadian technologies that should be explored in peacekeeping. At the top we see aerospace systems, helicopters, UAVs, planes, and balloons that can give a bird's-eye view, while ground surveillance, like video and radar, can be used to protect UN camps. Night vision devices can be used to detect perpetrators who use the cover of darkness to commit atrocities and use the night to hide their weapons.
As the Canadian Forces acquires a new set of UAVs, or uninhabited aerial vehicles, at least a few of these should be deployed to assist the UN in its peacekeeping operations. As the UN waits for help in places like Darfur, Congo, and Haiti, with so little technical capability—and lives are being lost—can Canada afford not to help?
As Einstein reminded us, concern for humanity should be our primary motivating force.
Please include in your report the ways in which science and technology can be used properly as a great boon and not a curse for humanity.
My colleague, Derek Paul, will now address other threats and aspects of science and technology.