Madam Speaker, the previous member who represented this Waterloo riding was the Hon. Walter McLean who was preceded by Max Saltzman. In some ways I reflect some of their thinking and the thinking of the community that I represent.
We have to ask this question. When do we have enough armaments?
I heard the hon. member talk about an almost benevolent cruise missile, one which does not have to have nuclear capability.
If one looks at what initially instigated the development of the cruise missile, which was the Soviet Union, and if one looks at the Soviet Union today and its break up into many different states, one cannot help but think of Ukraine that has nuclear weapons and the world desperately wants it to give them up. In some sense I wonder how Canada as a nation that faces virtually no threat from Russia can tell the Ukrainians that they should
give up their nuclear weapons when we are acquiescing to the testing of the cruise missile.
We were here all day yesterday debating the war in Bosnia and what role this House should take. I really believe that these debates are very refreshing. I am glad to see that the Reform Party is not sticking together on the issue. They are expressing genuinely different points of view and I think that can be said about the House as a whole.
I guess at some point in time we have to say that we have enough weapons of mass destruction. We are just dealing now with the cruise, but there are biological and chemical weapons that exist on this fragile plant. To take a phrase from Project Ploughshares from my community it is time to turn some of that weaponry into ploughshares. It is time to turn some of those swords into ploughshares.
If a country like Canada, with our special standing in the world as a middle power and really of little threat as an aggressor, is unable to do that then my question has to be this. What country is going to take the first step?