Madam Speaker, I think it is fair enough in debate to take a bit of a jab about whether I stayed entirely on topic in my comments about the bill, but let me jab back to say that I am not taking the parliamentary secretary's comments too seriously because I actually believe he knows that these comments are absolutely relevant to the debate we are having about this bill and that there is absolutely and unquestionably the potential for this.
We do not need to have a suspicious mind or suffer from paranoia to be concerned about the possibility that the stated purpose of the bill, the capability we have to become, more and more, players with regard to satellite operations and then whatever else happens from there, is real. It is the question we face.
I heard the parliamentary secretary. Now of course he has me worried, because I heard him do a bit of a rah-rah about how we really have to be concerned about what North Korea might do and we have to be very concerned about what we know Iran is already up to.
It is very clear, with all due respect, that when members of the House invoke those kinds of issues, a lot of people brace themselves to hear what follows, because that is the Bush line on all of this, which is that we therefore need to be part of missile defence because, boy, that is the only way we can defend ourselves.
Let me say this about yesterday afternoon just before the foreign affairs committee meeting. It is a shame that some members of the committee were not even there to hear the testimony, but I ask members to please go to the committee Hansard. Retired Ambassador Jonathan Dean, who has a distinguished record in the military and a distinguished record in diplomacy around non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and around peace negotiations, pleaded with us as Canadians concerned about doing the right thing.
He pleaded with us to recognize that yes, there are real threats and concerns that North Korea poses and that Iran poses, but the wrong response to that, exactly the opposite response to what is needed, would be to sign on to missile defence, because not only is missile defence distracting and diverting enormous resources into building up this escalation of its own U.S. weaponry, but it is also distracting from the real things that need to be done.
Really, it was one of the most helpful things in his testimony when he pointed out how shocking it is that people are neglecting to do what needs to be done to actually deal effectively and a lot more cheaply with the developments in North Korea and Iran. That is exactly the point. It is not because those are wrong-headed concerns. It is because the response is not a solution; they are the wrong solutions.
Again let me say that when this legislation comes before committee it is going to be very important for us to look at every single word and what it means, and to look at every single provision in terms of whether the protections against potential abuse are what they need to be.
I want to say further that since what this kind of debate leads to is either an argument for “yes, we need to be in the game”, which gets us straight onto that conveyor belt to missile defence and the weaponization of space, as Lloyd Axworthy, a former foreign affairs minister in this Liberal government, described it, or we take seriously what are the real, effective alternatives that need to be pursued. We need to do our homework on those things.
One of the things that has been very encouraging in the testimony before the foreign affairs committee, and frankly by the witnesses who appeared at the parliamentary network against nuclear weapons as well, is that there are practical, concrete, specific things that we need to be doing. It should be a sobering reminder.
The parliamentary secretary has taken the opportunity to say that these satellites are out there so let us not put our heads in the sand and let us talk about what kind of satellite we have and what kind of environment it is.
Two things have been raised before the committee again and again. One is that there is already a problem with debris out there, which is threatening satellites.
Second, and I will finish with this, it should be sobering for us to realize that we are talking about 800 satellites, of which RADARSAT-2 would be one, and 100 of those 800 satellites are American satellites dedicated exclusively for military purposes.
Let us be clear about the environment in which we now are talking about advancing RADARSAT-2 and let us ensure that the regulatory mechanisms around it are going to truly advance and protect not only Canadians' interests but the global citizens of the world, because that is who is affected by what goes on out there in space with satellites and whatever other horrible things may follow.