Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas for instigating this debate on the space shield. He is a parliamentarian with a lot of experience. He does not hesitate to deal with core issues or often to provoke discussions.
I have to give him the credit for having initiated this debate on the space shield. This is not the first debate he has initiated, but this one is particularly important at the present time. This debate is just a starting point. We will need many more discussions over this issue.
The space shield is not a new issue. The hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas had no qualms telling me that when he was invited to make a speech in the House of Commons Ronald Reagan quipped that there was a lot of echo in the House of Commons when some heckling came from the NDP benches.
The position the NDP is taking today does not come as a surprise. It is consistent with the position it has sustained for many years.
In those days George Lucas, a great Hollywood producer, was having a big box office hit with his movie Star Wars . Ronald Reagan was said to promote a kind of star wars at an astronomically high cost for the time. The cost of developing such a system would probably be just as astronomical today.
What has been done so far? Some testing has been done. In fact two tests, which were far from being conclusive. I think the great American pride was somewhat hurt by these tests because they were far from being conclusive. Finally they were cut short so the Americans could say “It has been a success. We have intercepted a missile”. On the contrary, they missed the mark.
Let us look at the geopolitical issues as well as those regarding current treaties. Already international powers such as Russia and China are saying “We are party to a treaty. We often hear about the anti-ballistic missile or the ABM treaty, but we will simply withdraw from this treaty because it is our understanding that the defence system you are putting in place will give you an offensive capability, with us being unable to retaliate”.
There are important geopolitical issues to consider. It is the same thing with the non-proliferation treaty or NPT. International powers such as Russia and China say they will withdraw from such treaties, which means we could see a revival of the arms race. I will come back to this later, because it is important to understand the impact on various treaties.
With regard to geographical considerations, it is normal that Europeans be against this project given the way it has been designed. By Europeans I mean the European governments. The private sector, and members will see where I am going with this, has a totally different point of view since it is aware of all the potential economic spinoffs this could have.
As far as the U.S. is concerned, this is an election promise made by its new president, George W. Bush. It is far from being a done deal. The United States Congress and Senate have yet to say they agree with this. Need I remind the House that there is a very small Republican majority in congress and a one seat Republican majority in the senate. The President of the United States may have some plan in mind, but he still has to deal with American democratic and parliamentary entities. As we can see, it is far from being a sure thing.
I have already spoken at length about Russia and China. They are totally against this project. The position of Canada is questionable. The Prime Minister travels to China and says “We will just have to wait and see how things will go”.
A few weeks later he meets with President Bush and things start to change. He gets a little mellower and starts opening doors.
The foreign affairs minister says that it is okay as long as there is consultation and that Russia and China agree, which basically means that we are against the project. There are somewhat contradictory indications coming from the government right now.
All that to say that as far as ideology and economy are concerned, this debate will never be over. I remember I was a great pacifist and I had problems when we talked about the cruise missile tests over the Canadian territory. To me, it made no sense at all, but I had been told “Sure, but from an economic point of view if contracts are awarded in your constituency people will not be happy”. It is always the same dynamic.
The member who spoke before me referred to ties with NORAD. We must bear in mind that the NORAD agreement provides for the joint defence of the North American territory.
Our economy is so integrated with the American economy and there is such a large scale integration in our North American territorial defence policy with the Americans that it seems to me that it would be very difficult for us to stay out of all this if the President of the United States were to suddenly convince the congress and the senate to go ahead.
There would be a problem for us. However, at the moment, the concept is far from being clear. I mentioned the inconclusive tests earlier, but what concept will the Americans put forward? Everybody is waiting to know.
In English we often talk about the national missile defence program, which is really the American missile defence program, a program designed only for the United States.
The Americans, having noted the hesitation, are now saying that it could be a global anti-missile program. What does that mean? I think Canada being a close neighbour of the United States would certainly be included. What about European countries? Could the concept be expanded so that the system would protect all friendly territories against enemy attacks?
We know nothing about the American concept. Who would be included in a global program? Should Japan, Europe and Canada be included? In a strictly national program, the span would be totally different. The existing concept is one known as balance of terror.
I have a bit of a problem with arguments like “You know, Iraq could launch a missile attack on the United States”. If it launched a single missile aimed at the United States, Iraq would be wiped from the face of the earth. I fail to understand how there could be any mistake, with Iraq attacking the most powerful country in the world with a missile. I also have a hard time understanding the explanations given by the Americans.
It is clear the Americans have not totally developed their concept yet. They are sending trial balloons to see how their allies will react. Canada has not stated its position either; it is taking a wait and see approach.
We in the Bloc Quebecois would like to see what is coming, what concept the Americans want to introduce, before saying we agree. We do concede, however, as neighbours that from the economic point of view aerospace and aeronautics are established industries in Quebec. Obviously we want to wait and see, and should we decide to support the Americans we will have our say.
At this point, however, I would like to ask the government one thing. Our colleague has initiated the debate, but if decisions are to be made the government would have to commit to coming back to the House of Commons so that there may be a thorough discussion of the matter.
For the moment we can unfortunately not support the position of our colleague from Burnaby—Douglas even if we do concede that he has brought the matter before the House and that the discussion is far from over.