Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on a thoughtful and powerful presentation of his party's case. I would like to feel that we too on this side of the House, in spite of his comment that we stand for nothing, do stand for one important value at this time, I believe. We stand for the support of and beside the citizens of Canada who in the majority are largely, emphatically and determinedly opposed to military action at this time and in these circumstances, not under any circumstance, but under these circumstances.
To suggest people are cowardly because they choose to work through the multilateral institutions that are the sole possibility we have of avoiding conflicts like this in the future is in my view a mistaken approach, but let me ask the member a question because this is an important debate. We do have to get down to some differences we have. We can have legitimate differences in the House, but we must address them.
I want to ask a question of the Leader of the Opposition because he has thought a great deal about these issues. He put the proposition that dealing with Saddam Hussein in this fashion is the only way to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Have he and his party given thought to the fact that there will be countries that will today decide to acquire weapons of mass destruction because of threats of this kind?
Have he and his party thought of the analogy of North Korea and that North Korea today stands determined to threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons precisely because of threats of this kind? Does he not agree with us that we need multilateral institutions to address these issues or we will fall into a chaos where everybody will search for weapons of mass destruction and we will be in a more dangerous place than where he seeks the security for the Canadian population that we are working for today?