Mr. Speaker, I just want to bring the member back to some very straightforward facts that all members know. There are absolutely irrational people in this world and we have seen it many times over. We have seen the consequences of some terrible wars where tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered by people in their own country. We saw it in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. There are people that we cannot predict what they are going to do. It is absolutely impossible, but we do know for a fact that they are developing these technologies for long range nuclear missiles, and yes, I think it would be prudent to develop defences against these, very much so.
That does not mean that we should not also pursue the other track, trying to force these countries into becoming more democratic and trying to push the people of these countries into becoming more democratic, but we cannot pretend that we would be isolated, that the people of Canada are somehow insulated from a potential attack, not at all.
It is prudent for us to participate. We are part of the continent of North America. This is a North American missile defence system. We have a very large country and it would be very wrong for us not to participate in this. History speaks for itself. We just have to look at the history books to see what has happened over this last decade.