Mr. Speaker, as I said in my opening remarks, there has been a quite active series of examinations by the NATO council, the strategic command within NATO and the military forces of a series of contingency phases.
I do not think it would be very appropriate for me to outline what the steps would be until the decisions are taken. I can assure the member that one of the clear options would be to use a form of air strikes. Where the targets would be and so on I am not at liberty to discuss. We would hope the clear will and determination that could be shown to use those would mean that they would not have to be used. There is some suggestion that in the past, as we know in Bosnia, when the question of air strikes came up Milosevic did come to the table. That is the kind of equation we are dealing with.
As far as our relation with Russia, again it is not easy. The Russians have made very clear statements. They were in Belgrade just this last weekend. There will be meetings tomorrow in London of the contact group. I was in touch with certain foreign ministers today to talk about that. We would hope that those discussions would lead to discussion with the Russian foreign minister which I hope would lead to a more active and positive contribution in the security council itself and the support of a resolution in the security council. I cannot say that I am wildly optimistic about that and the time grows short.
There will be a planned meeting I believe on Friday of the NATO-Russian joint council. Members will recall that when we talked about the NATO expansion there was an agreement to have this joint council that brings NATO and Russia together. I believe there is a meeting planned on Friday before we go into the weekend discussions at the NATO council level.
As for the commitment at the present time, Canada has six CF-18s in the theatre stationed in Italy. They have been part of the contingency planning at this point. It is probably more proper to raise the question with the Minister of Defence who will be here later this evening, but at this point there are no further commitments on that.
It is one of the areas we have been emphasizing during the discussions both at the UN and at NATO that we also see the need for some form of provision for security within Kosovo from the point of view of humanitarian assistance and for assurances of protection of displaced persons. These people are afraid. They are not going to come back to their villages. They are going to freeze. They think when they come back they are going to be hit, and that is the difficulty we face. I have to say to the member for Red Deer that is part of the contingency plan as well.