Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Parkdale-High Park for his question and for his strong representation of Canadians of central and eastern European descent.
Since the collapse of the Berlin wall, Canada has played an active role in urging the NATO alliance to reach out to countries in central and eastern Europe.
At the NATO summit of 1994 Canada enthusiastically joined the other allies in agreeing that NATO should enlarge. At the same time, Canada is working to ensure that NATO enlargement is done in a way that will increase the security of all countries in Europe and that the creation of new dividing lines is avoided. This means that we will work to enhance NATO's partnership for peace program and to strengthen the OSCE as a key element for the European security architecture.