Thank you.
I'll certainly admit that consistency is often a luxury that academics have, which politicians might not, so I fully accept that. I do accept that there are other considerations than purely what we take to be the strategic situation in the world.
I'll first tackle your question about other means of dealing with the problem. I fully agree there are certainly many other means we can take to try to slow proliferation of ballistic missiles and other types of technologies. We do so diplomatically. We've done so in many other ways. Getting back to the Cold War for a second. As part of its Cold War commitments Canada was actively engaged in supporting the American nuclear deterrent via NORAD, yet at the same time was attempting to push forward nuclear disarmament and arms control.
So we've done this quite a bit in the past when we supported an existing system that might have provided us with a degree of defence, but we also actively engaged in efforts to defend ourselves should the need ever arise.
So my suggestion is simply that going back to Prime Minister Martin's conditions with respect to whether or not Canada should take part, he made it clear that in his view, Canada should only take part if there was no cost to Canada and if no systems were installed in space that would encourage a greater arms race. I would still support those basic conditions in the sense that if Canada joined knowing there would be no cost to Canada and that it would not lead, or having as a condition that it would not lead, to the installation of greater weapons in space, then we could at least have this two-track approach whereby we accept the need for diplomacy. We accept the need that it has to contain an arms race, but at the same time, we need to recognize that the system is already in place in Europe. Anything we do at this point would not slow any arms race reaction that it might breed. The only cost to us would be to have greater defences.
I think that at the end of the day, if we want to have greater input into the system, if we want to ensure that it doesn't go beyond a minimum defence against accidental launches or any type of intimidation by certain states, at the very least we take part and we try to have that voice and that perspective heard.