Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in the debate this evening. I want to congratulate my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas for introducing the motion and launching a very important debate around the sheer madness of Canada being associated in any way, shape or form with the proposed U.S. national missile defence system.
Before I get to the position of the government or, I guess more accurately, the non-position of the government, I want to just say a word or two about what I have heard from the other parties in the debate this evening.
I suppose it is not surprising that we hear from the Alliance the same usual knee-jerk, uncritical embracing of American defence initiatives. According to the Alliance, we want to Americanize our political system, Americanize our economy and certainly Americanize our health care system and our education system. Why would anybody be surprised at the Alliance's commitment to further throw in our lot with American defence initiatives, no matter how mad and irresponsible they really are?
I have to say I was somewhat more disappointed and frankly surprised at what I heard from the Bloc member who essentially said “Actually, I tend to be a bit of a pacifist myself but gee, what can you do? It is going to happen anyway”. Besides, said the member, there might be some economic advantages to us if we get in on this madness that has been condemned from every corner of the world.
Again, I am not entirely surprised. Maybe it underscores the basis for some reuniting of the Alliance and Tory interests here. Essentially, we have an uncritical view coming from the Tory Party as well, which I think is disappointing and really an abandonment of what one has from time to time seen of a more enlightened nature from this party on similar issues in the past.
I want to turn now to the government's position or, as I say, non-position. What is that position? Essentially the government claims that it does not yet know enough to take a position. What is it about the government that it is so committed to sitting squarely and firmly on the picket fence on an issue such as this one, which cries out for leadership? The excuse given is that the government does not really know enough yet or that it does not really know whether the technology is going to work. For the love of God, what does this mean?
Why is it that the German defence minister was absolutely unequivocal in stating that Germany was not prepared to be part of what essentially becomes the dismantling of the international architecture of arms control? That is the implication of going ahead with the national missile defence system. It has been recognized that what will absolutely go up in smoke is the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty. That is the architecture.
I know some have said that it is sort of an old treaty since it is from 1972, but we heard the member for Burnaby—Douglas remind us again that as recently as May 2000, I believe, 187 countries, including, by the way, the U.S. and Russia, all acknowledged that we have to build on that anti-ballistic missile treaty in order to move forward with meaningful disarmament.
What is it that makes it impossible for the government to take a moral stand here when we see, for example, that the prime minister of Italy had no difficulty in saying that he had enough information? He was persuaded on the basis of what we know: that the NMD poses a risk to the indivisibility of NATO. In February, the French president, Jacques Chirac, said very clearly that the NMD cannot fail to relaunch the arms race in the world.
How much more do we need to know than that every major peace group in the world and major research bodies have clearly taken a stand that this is madness? We used to have a tradition in this country. We had a deserved reputation for taking leadership in such matters. What happened to the Pearsonian tradition? What happened such that Canada is willing to cower and to hide out from taking leadership on something that literally threatens to relaunch a major arms race in the world and threatens the future of peace and security worldwide?
I appeal to those members who are sort of playing around with this as if it were star wars. I have to say that one of the difficulties with the image, which was made to stick to the Reagan era but is now out there as a sort of questionable description of what the NMB would mean for the future of the human race, is that we now have a whole generation of young people, and actually I think the whole Canadian population, who actually think that star wars is something that is just in the movies. It has a kind of positive notion about it. There is nothing positive about a proposal of the U.S.A. to relaunch nuclear proliferation and to relaunch a massive arms race, because once the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty goes up in smoke, then we are talking about a free-for-all. We simply have to re-establish Canada as a leader in these matters. The government has congratulated itself, with good reason, for taking some leadership on the issue of landmines.
Let me make this my final point. Surely if government members will not listen to the pleas of opposition members, major scientists, other leaders and peace activists around the world, would they not be willing to listen to the pleadings of the former minister of international affairs in the government, the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, who now has thrown off the shackles of being part of the madness of this Liberal government? He is prepared to take a stand and say that we must not be part of this madness. I appeal to members to listen to that message.