Mr. Speaker, for 50 years Canada and the other major nations of the world have pursued dual track policy with regard to defending ourselves against inner-ballistic missiles. The first was the principle of mutually assured destruction, which basically said that there was enough rationality on the part of others that they would see it is not in their interests to be wiped off the face of the planet.
The other part of that is we have also worked to restrict the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the proliferation of all of these systems. It was hard and dirty work but it was generally pretty successful.
The problem I have with investing all of this money and energy into national missile defence is that it detracts from the real work of disarmament and anti-proliferation. It means that people have given up on the idea of trying to stop these states from acquiring these weapons, whether it is through diplomacy or some kind of negotiation which has worked for 50 years, in favour of a technology which is incredibly dubious. It is only based on these missiles coming in being extremely primitive. It does not deal with a missile with any degree of sophistication which would have decoys on it, for example.
That is the problem. We need to pursue the old doctrine of first, we crush them if they attack us, and second, we will try to negotiate with them so they do not feel they have to.