Mr. Speaker, the second petition, again signed by many residents of my constituency, seeks to draw the attention of the House to the following: that the Government of Canada may be asked to support the U.S. national missile defence, NMD, program to be operated by the North American aerospace defence command; that NMD is a unilateral initiative of the United States which plans, as it states in this petition, to dominate space by integrating space forces into war fighting capability; that NMD would be a step toward the deployment of weapons in space and lead to a new arms race; and that it would violate the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty and run counter to Canada's commitment as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty to promote complete nuclear disarmament.
These treaties are the cornerstones of the international non-proliferation arms control and disarmament regimes long supported by Canada. Therefore the petitioners call upon parliament to declare that Canada objects to the national missile defence program of the United States and ask that Canada play a leadership role in banning nuclear weapons and missile flight tests.