Mr. Speaker, opposition members always say that this has not been engaged in Parliament, that they know nothing, and that they are kept in the dark. The hon. member knows full well that very competent members of his party have sat on the defence and the foreign affairs committees. In my personal recollection, this matter has been discussed for the last five years.
When I was chairman of the foreign affairs committee, we spent a great deal of time considering this issue. The foreign affairs committee came out with a report recently which discussed Canada-U.S. relations. This is a matter on which interested members of the House have had an opportunity to participate in and be fully informed on for many years. The government took the position that it was not appropriate in the light of earlier circumstances to engage a discussion on this issue. In my view, that was the right decision to take, but conditions change.
One of the most important conditions is that the United States was able to resolve with Russia the issue of its position on this matter. There was a time when we might have considered making the world a more dangerous place than before and we registered our opposition to it. That important consideration has changed. With changed circumstances, the government can change. The government is able to defend the interests of Canadians in the light of changed geopolitical circumstances. That is what we must do and that is what we are here to do.