Mr. Speaker, I welcome the comments of the hon. member which were enlightened and sensible. Not surprisingly, I agreed with much of what he said.
He made several excellent suggestions such as co-operation among the polar nations, expansion of NORAD in some respects to work with other polar nations in terms of surveillance. He made some important suggestions in terms of UN reform. He said Canada's security is intertwined with the security of every other
country in the world and that Canadians must take a leading role in establishing the precursors to peacekeeping.
I agree with these sentiments. They are wise sentiments. However, we are talking today about NORAD and the advantage is surely that it does save Canada a great deal of money. We work with the United States in activities such as surveillance. We have based our defence policy on co-operation.
Many of the hon. member's suggestions would cause Canada's defence budget, indeed its foreign affairs budget, to rise dramatically. Does the hon. member believe his party, his constituents, his province and Canadians in general would support the kind of increase in the defence budget and foreign affairs budget that such policies would seem to suggest as necessary?