Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the hon. member made this assertion. I can only assume he has not read the white paper. As has been pointed out by the critic for the Reform Party, the white paper has been very well received.
As to the timing, we always said we would try to table the document before Christmas. We are cognizant of the fact that going into the holiday season people are preoccupied with other matters and we wanted to give Parliament and Canadians a good time to reflect on it.
Again the hon. member is indirectly reflecting on the work of the special joint committee on defence. I know his party had a dissenting report, but there were three other parties including a party not represented in the House officially, but represented in the Senate-which shall remain nameless-that all agreed with the report. We have taken the core of that report, almost all the recommendations, and we have embellished them. I believe that if the hon. member reads the document he will see it does set out a clear vision for defence policy in the 21st century.