Madam Speaker, I would be glad to answer the question by the member for Medicine Hat.
If the cruise missile were a weapon of interception, he would have a valid question. But the cruise missile is not a weapon of interception, it is a weapon of attack, it is a weapon to deliver, if necessary, warheads. Therefore his question is invalid because he is addressing the wrong weapon.
As to intercepting weapons which come into our Canadian space, we would have to use other weapons but certainly not a cruise missile because that is not the intent or the qualification of that weapon. It is used to attack and deliver nuclear warheads to certain specific targets in other countries.
The member for Medicine Hat failed to demonstrate to us that this is the weapon he would rely on in order to intercept, but more importantly he failed to identify the enemy for us. He very vaguely mentioned that there could be an attack. I urge him to identify the enemy for us. I submit to him that collectively the enemy is us and our fear. It is time to stop talking like cold war cavemen and cavewomen because we are living in another decade.
The agenda has shifted very rapidly. It is no longer the agenda on how to prevent a strike or an attack that we should be concentrating our time and energy on. It is how to prevent the elements in the global community that have to do with, as I mentioned, poverty and environmental degradation, that have to be addressed and the energies of governments need to be focused on that agenda.