Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to take part in this debate. I first want to congratulate the hon. member for Saint-Jean on his motion, which reads:
That this House urge the government not to take part in the United States' missile defence plan.
I want to thank him for this motion, because it is an opportunity to hold a debate that the government, unfortunately, did not allow us to have other than on an opposition day. This motion is not a votable one. If the government had been serious here, I know that there would have been unanimous consent to make this a votable motion.
That said, the way in which the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the House are treating this issue shows their lack of respect for Canadians and Quebeckers. People are extremely worried about this missile defence plan. They are perhaps much more worried than the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada realize.
I would not be surprised, over the next few weeks, particularly with regard to the federal Liberal leadership campaign, but also the next federal election, if the missile defence plan were to become a major issue.
I am therefore asking Liberals to be cautious. It is rather paradoxical for a political opponent to do this, but I am doing so in the interests of Canada and Quebec. By making too hasty a decision, the Liberal government, the Liberal party and future Liberal party candidates must not be made to pay the price during the entire election campaign.
As one of them said in Le Devoir : “A yes now makes a no more difficult later”. So, at best it is leaving itself some leeway, taking the time to think and seeing where things lead. At worst, it is adopting a difficult to defend position that it would probably abandon in the face of concerted opposition from Canadians and Quebeckers.
Of course, these are political considerations, but they are extremely important. The Prime Minister understood this very well. No one was fooled by the fact that he made his decision about the war on Iraq during Quebec's election. I do not think that this was the only consideration, but I think it had a strong influence.
It was quite clear that an election campaign with a federal government that supported the American offensive in Iraq would have turned out differently than what we saw in recent weeks, with demonstrations every weekend. I organized demonstrations; I took part in demonstrations; I myself was astonished, and I think that other organizers were also astonished by the response from Quebeckers, by their call for peace, weekend after weekend.
Once again, I would like to thank the member for Saint-Jean for giving us this opportunity to discuss this extremely important issue. However I am disappointed that the government did not consider the issue serious enough to organize a real debate and allow a vote.
I hope that this Bloc Quebecois opposition day will allow the Liberals, the Prime Minister and the cabinet to reflect on the impact of support for the American proposal.
First, I think it has been mentioned—and I am no expert on these issues—but clearly observers and experts in this area have called into question the proposed technology, even the latest technology, in Mr. Bush's plan. So, we would be getting involved in something that might never come to pass because the technology will not work, even as modified by the American administration.
Then, and this was also mentioned, there are the astronomical costs: $60 billion to $120 billion. This money could easily be used for other purposes. The member for Laval Centre just mentioned some of these purposes. I am always surprised to see how our governments, that of Canada, but especially the Government of the United States, are able to come up with staggering amounts of money for war and military spending, yet they are unable to find money for international aid. That is particularly true of Canada. Unfortunately, it is also true of the United States, which is the most powerful country in the world.
How is it—I cannot wrap my mind around this one—that a government can consider a project that will cost between $60 billion and $120 billion to create a missile defence system, the effectiveness of which is far from having been proven, when it cannot find a few billion dollars for international aid at a time when the gap between northern and southern societies is growing, or even the gap within our own societies?
We have seen from the census and the figures released yesterday that the gap is increasing between the top 10% of our society and the bottom 10%.
I cannot accept priority being given to a plan that will take away billions of dollars, not only from the U.S. Treasury, but also from the Canadian consolidated revenue fund, when the priorities lie elsewhere, for example the fight against poverty, application of the Kyoto protocol, the search for solutions to the fiscal imbalance between the federal government and the provinces. There are other priorities far closer to Canadians than this missile defence plan.
As I have said, its usefulness will be dubious. I am sure, as all opposition members have pointed out, that the existence of such a defence system would never have stopped the September 11 attacks nor will it ever stop terrorists who use more conventional weapons. If Al Queda had had the means that some even secondary powers possess, it would not have needed to highjack planes to do what it did. It would have had weapons to attack American interests in another way. We do not know what means they will make use of in future to put across their point of view via methods all of us here oppose.
Not only is it an unwieldy and extremely costly technology, but it is also not up to the challenges identified even by the Americans in their fight against terrorism.
Looking at the existing countries, even those labelled rogue states, what can the Americans be so frightened of? The cold war is over, the great European economic powers are certainly not a threat. The former U.S.S.R., that is Russia, is facing terrible problems. China too is having a lot of problems. We have seen that with the SARS epidemic, which has shown the world the real problems their system is experiencing. It is certainly not North Korea, despite its showy foreign policy, which frightens no one. In this matter, it is playing along with the U.S. authorities. So let no one try to convince us that North Korea, Syria or the Iraq of yesterday are powers that represent a real threat to the Americans.
We must not let ourselves be taken in. As has been said, this is a strategy of the U.S. government, of President Bush, to impose U.S. authority on the world, to pass itself off as the world's policeman. This we cannot accept. The Canadian government has never accepted that in the past, and Quebeckers will not accept it either.
We must not have any illusions. It is clear from the pre-emptive attack on Iraq. It is clear from the decision of the U.S. government and the coalition to rebuild Iraq, with the UN almost outside the process instead of occupying a central role. In supporting this plan, we are helping to marginalize the United Nations, and all multilateral activity in the world, particularly in the west.
Furthermore, it is part of an industrial strategy. I find that the Canadian government is being incredibly naive. It is clear that all of national defence and all the spending on the missile defence plan will not be covered by the WTO or the FTAA.
We already know that there are American farmers whose fields are irrigated by the U.S. army. That is not a subsidy because it is not covered by international treaties on international trade.
The $60 to $120 billion that will be spent will be spent outside multilateral trade treaties. And who will pay for all that? In large part, it will be the Canadian economy.
This is nothing new. The Americans have always wanted to use the conquest of space and the military-industrial complex to develop their civilian industries.
I will conclude by saying that this might isolate Canada from the main partners with whom we agree on a multilateral approach to international trade. Therefore, I call upon the Prime Minister, the cabinet and the government to demonstrate good old common sense and refuse to go along with this plan, as the hon. member for Saint-Jean—whom I congratulate once more—asks in his motion.