Mr. Speaker, there are two elements to the member's question and I would like to start by going back to the finish of my talk which, given the time constraints, I did not have time to address properly.
The thrust of what I was trying to say about the Arctic Council-and I would recommend this to the hon. member because it does not directly relate to the Canoe Lake Band to which he refers-is that it is a proposal which has been espoused in Canada for a long time. It would involve the Soviet Union, Alaska and all the countries and participants in the Arctic Circle. It would enable the peoples of that area, including the aboriginal peoples of the Soviet Union and other countries in the Arctic area, to get together and co-operate.
As a backbencher what I was urging on the government was that if the testing was to go forward an opportunity might be seized to say to our American counterparts that if they proceed with these tests we would like to see some movement on the development of the Arctic Council. This might go some way toward addressing the concerns of the member for Western Arctic to which I referred in my talk.
Forgive me but I am not familiar with the specific concerns of the Canoe Lake Band and the facts to which the member referred. Therefore just in the light of what he told me, it would seem that the position is more than reasonable to say that we should pursue with all vigour an examination of the legitimacy of the claims and do our best to make sure of the result in the light of the debate and see if we can make sure that anybody living in the area where the missile might or might not be tested would be ensured of the full preservation of their rights as was suggested by my hon. friend, the member for Vancouver Quadra, in his intervention.