Mr. Speaker, I am from Transcona, but I am also from Missouri, and I will support an integrated policy on the part of the Liberals when I see it and when I see it actually being put into action. I do not see much integration there at the moment at all. I see a foreign defence policy that has been dis-integrated and disintegrating for a long time and which has actually over time reduced the perception of Canada in the world as a real player.
I think we have been living off our laurels for a long time in the world. It takes other countries a long time to figure out that Canada is not actually spending what it used to spend on overseas development aid. It is not uncommon if we travel to have people be very complimentary about Canada. I think that is good and I think there is still a lot to be complimentary about in terms of the role that Canadians play in the world as individuals.
But the role that the Canadian government plays in the world has increasingly become smaller and smaller, not just in terms of its capacity to make Canadian troops available where they are needed in certain situations, but in terms of development and diplomacy and its role in terms of disarmament.
I noticed that the parliamentary secretary talked about defence, diplomacy and development. Now I had only been up on my feet a minute or two before and I had also talked about the need for disarmament, nuclear disarmament, but the parliamentary secretary did not mention that. Maybe that was an oversight or maybe it tells us something about where the government is at: that it has actually given up on that.
We have not given up on that, so I say to the parliamentary secretary, when the Liberals come forward with an integrated policy and show that they mean it and that they actually intend to do something about it, instead of just having photo ops with Bono and pretending to be the kind of country we used to be, then maybe they will get some support from us, but not before.