Madam Speaker, I commend the hon. member for the passion with which he spoke. He talked a lot about the environment and certainly his goals are admirable. I commend him for that.
I would like to touch on some of the points he made respecting the possibility of nuclear war. Who is the enemy? Why should we be testing a weapon that can carry a nuclear warhead? Is it not better to support the advance of democracy than it is to prepare for war? In many respects I believe the gentleman is right. Certainly liberal democracies do not fight wars against one another.
It is also a sad truth that many of the countries in the world are not liberal democracies. We still have many countries that are ruled by men who have no compunction about killing people and invading other countries.
In trying to answer some of those questions I think we have to test weapons that can carry nuclear warheads because we will also be, at some point in our future sad to say, faced with the possibility that we may have to intercept those types of weapons as they come into our air space. I think it is very important that we have defensive capabilities against those weapons.
I also point out that there are many places in the world, such as the former Soviet Union-the hon. member was talking about who is the enemy-and I think many places in the former Soviet Union, particularly now with the rise of Vladimir Zhirinovsky in Russia, should all give one pause when we talk about how peaceful the world really is.
Having said all that, and considering there are many places in the world that are not likely to become liberal democracies any time soon, countries that have the capability to produce nuclear weapons and all kinds of other weapons, does the hon. member agree that we should be prepared to intercept those types of missiles that could come from some of those countries?