Mr. Speaker, in February I asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs to assure the House that Canada would not join a North American missile defence system as currently tested by the United States of America. Since then this American proposal has spurred an international debate escalating beyond the question of Canadian participation to the point where the possibility of the United States implementing such a system represents a potential threat to world peace.
Some American politicians have conjured up a doomsday scenario of missile attacks from so-called rogue states such as North Korea, Iran, Iraq or Libya. This absurd hypothesis omits the fact that none of these states has nuclear weapons nor long range missiles, that these countries are very poor and that their leaders do not want to provoke retaliation.
Moreover experts agree that terrorist attacks, weapons stuffed in briefcases or trailer trucks pose a greater danger to national security than ballistic rockets, but this is not the point. The point is that this foolish alarmism has triggered the most contentious security dispute in a long time and is threatening to undermine decades of good work toward arms reduction agreements.
The proposed United States national defence system would violate the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty because the treaty bans wide scale nuclear missile defence systems. To put such a system in place, the United States would have to obtain Russian approval to amend the treaty. Already the Russian president has publicly stated that he would pull out of all bilateral arms control agreements if the United States decided to go ahead with a national missile defence system. In that case the Americans have indicated they would simply abrogate the anti-ballistic missile treaty and go ahead with the system anyway.
The reason the treaty bans national defence shields is they would lead opposing states to develop new offensive weapons to circumvent proposed defence systems, thus triggering an arms race. Both Russia and China have therefore warned that ballistic missile defence system deployment would be met with greater nuclear warheads deployment. Such deployment would threaten another key treaty under the arms control framework, the non-proliferation treaty. A missile defence system therefore would send the wrong message to non-nuclear weapons states, and the non-proliferation treaty which historically Canada has championed would crumble.
What has been Canada's reaction so far? Apparently the defence minister is under pressure in view of the fact that he fears the United States may pull back into a fortress mentality. However the United States has already indicated its intent to act unilaterally therefore isolating itself from the rest of the world.
It should also be noted that while the United States has made no formal request to Canada for its participation some believe Canada must join, because of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command. The fact is Washington will go ahead with or without Canada's support but would like to use our good international reputation to gain support from other countries.
To conclude, it seems to me that Canadians now need reassurance that Canada will not support the missile defence system ever. Instead of debating why Canada should not join the system, we should instead be promoting the reasons why there should be no such system at all.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has challenged quite firmly and forcefully the reasons for Canada's participation. I support his stand and urge him to use every means at his disposal to keep Canada out of the scheme and to discourage the United States from going ahead. Could the parliamentary secretary give the House reassurance to that effect tonight?