Mr. Speaker, I too would like to acknowledge the Speaker for his very liberal viewpoints on many issues and also for his very conservative implementation of the rules of this place. He does not allow much leeway and I recognize that. That is why I try to stick as closely as I can to the rules as the Speaker sees them.
The issues that were raised by my colleague are interesting. He talked about the scientific benefits of the space station for Canada and our ability to monitor the Earth and study our environment, including monitoring agricultural crop and the Arctic ice pack, aiding in navigation for shipping and those sorts of things.
The member raises a good point. Certainly, the space station may very well be an aid to agriculture and to farmers, that is if there are any farmers left after the government is done with them. That is the real question. The technology will benefit farmers, but whether there will be any farmers left to benefit from it, God only knows and the Liberal government only knows because I certainly do not.
The space station can play a role in monitoring. Science and satellite technology can play a role in monitoring ships at sea off our coasts and so on. That is certainly a possibility.