Good question. The Russians have something like 3,500 missiles they could launch on us. This system will involve perhaps 100 or 200 when it is fully implemented. It is not possible to consider this part of a nuclear missile system or anything like it. It is a small system that will have a lot of practical use and may also have benefits to Canada as far as economic development goes.
Our position, which we are developing now, although we need to get more information, is that we think Canada could use this opportunity as a bargaining tool to encourage the United States government and the Russians to enter into more strategic arms talks to reduce nuclear arms more than they are reducing them now. We are down to approximately 3,000 to 3,500 missiles per side. Perhaps we could use this opportunity to get them to start anti-ballistic missile talks, START talks, to try to get them to agree to a level of maybe 1,000 or 1,500 as a condition of being involved with this program. We will be presenting that position to the government when we get more information on the exact details of the proposal.
In summary, we are not widely opposed to this. Our minds are open and we want to base our decisions on the facts when they become available. When that happens, we will base our decision on facts. In the meantime, we are going to encourage the government to use this as a bargaining tool to try to really do something positive in the missile defence system and the anti-missile defence talks because there is an opportunity now to do that.
Our position is that of having an open mind. I would have to say that we are leaning in favour of it because of the tremendous benefits from technology, from training and from experience. To just say that we are not going to be involved with any of this will turn the brain drain into the brain train.