Mr. Speaker, with respect to the sucking noise, I think the member is referring to the actual cost that is going to be put on revenues. Actually, the amount we spend on defence in this country has dramatically decreased since the government came to power some 10 years ago.
I made it quite clear in my speech that we do not want to put all of our eggs in one basket. It is important when we look at giving out foreign aid and CIDA money that we base it on making sure that the places that are getting it do not have corrupt governments. We must base it on countries that are willing to change to become more democratic, as we have just seen in Iraq. Hopefully that will develop into a very democratic country and can become a strong ally and a strong economic trading partner.
I am also saying that we cannot be naive. There are rogue states that are developing this technology. They are developing the capability of long range nuclear warheads. We would be naive not to prepare for that, especially a country as large as Canada is.
When a country like the United States is inviting us to participate in a North American missile defence system, it would be a very irresponsible thing for us not to be a player at the table. We could voice our concerns and make sure we are at the table. It is important that we develop these strategies the member talked about as far as trading, but we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that these other threats do not exist, because they do. We cannot just wait for them to happen; it is something on which we have to be ahead of the curve.
I think it would be very wrong for us not to participate in the missile defence system at this time.