Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech. I could not agree with him more.
If we go back in history and read some of the articles, the same concerns, which I am hearing today, were also raised with regard to Norad. Yet Norad has worked as a seamless partnership between Americans and Canadians for years now with no major problems at all.
The hon. member mentioned there had been questions raised in regard to Canadian sovereignty over this. I have a great problem with that. I think if the Americans had not been there, we would have probably already lost what we like to call Canadian sovereignty. We depend upon the Americans due to the depletion of our forces to protect our borders now, from illegal immigration, a possible invasion through to threats from all countries. We depend more and more upon our neighbours to the south to protect us.
I remember in when I was growing up we were very proud of our forces. We were proud of what we stood for in Canada with regard to fighting for freedom in the world.
Every where I go one of the greatest concerns I hear is why are we not supporting our forces more. Why are we not more involved in these situations? Why are we always taking a back seat? Basically, in my opinion we have turned our own defence system in Canada into a disgrace.
I would appreciate the opinion of the hon. member on this. We really cannot offer too much to the Americans to help with this program, other than our willingness to become involved. Does the hon. member not think it has been a disgrace of the government and previous governments to allow our forces to be depleted to the extent that they have, where we have to depend on other countries?