Mr. Speaker, I cannot say for sure what the mind of the Liberal caucus is on this or whether that is the reason the Prime Minister does not want to have a vote. It may be so, but I would not underestimate the power of the Prime Minister to bring all his members into line even if some of them were against it.
The hon. member raises a good point when he talks about the Prime Minister's response to the whole question of Canada's role in NATO. The Prime Minister said that he would not be the only one not to go along and that he is a part of team, et cetera.
Maybe we should unpack this team analogy for a few seconds because there are different people on the team. We can go all the way from the captain to the water boy. They are all on the team. What we are saying about Canada being a part of the NATO team is that we should have something to say in the huddle. To use a football analogy, we should have something to say about what the play is going to be and what we are going to do.
In this case, are we going to seek a diplomatic solution? Are we going to be open-minded about various other ways of creating openings to get back to the table? No matter how many guys are lined up, are we going to keep pushing through and trying the same plays over and over again regardless of whether or not they work?
The Prime Minister would do well to reflect on his own team metaphor for NATO. We know that Canada cannot be the captain. We know who the captain is. However, we can have members on the team who have something significant to say and something significant to contribute and that is what we ask of Canada in this regard.