Mr. Speaker, the time has come to end the presence of U.S. nuclear warships and of weapons testing in the Georgia Strait as the NDP has been proposing for many years now. The time has come to convert the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges at Nanoose Bay to a peaceful, environmentally sound and economically productive purpose.
The threat of a nuclear accident, the environmental damage, the danger of collisions with other vessels and the costs to Canada are all reasons for rethinking Canadian participation in a project that so clearly incarnates the kind of thinking that endangers the planet.
Canada sometimes talks a good line at the UN but when it comes to NATO and bilateral agreements with the U.S. like the one on Nanoose Bay, we show how deeply a part of the nuclear problem we really are. A decision to convert the Nanoose facility would be a step in the direction of being part of the solution.