Madam Chair, I am happy to enter into this important debate. Once again I would like to state my unequivocal opposition to Canada proceeding with a ballistic missile defence.
We have heard here a number of times, whether in fact the American administration is spending $14 million or $3 billion on future projections or historical projections, and no one has disputed the fact, that the Americans are actually spending money on research for weapons in space.
Where I come from, if the road sign says “weapons in space”, we do not want to go down there because the likelihood is that when we get to the end of the road that is where they will be.
We have not talked much about the stability that this system will entail. It is clear that the system is inaccurate. At best we have heard some of the testing results have not been perfected. It is not a perfect system.
All the so-called rogue states, which we are supposed to be protecting ourselves from, have to do is have more ballistic missiles and they will hit their target. Clearly, it is an escalation of the arm's race.
This reminds me of when I went to the Kurchatov Institute, the Russian institute that started its nuclear program. People from the institute told me that they only got involved in the program because the United States started it. That was when the whole nuclear race started. We are just entering into another phase of this.
Let us talk about the technology of the program. I have some quotes here from the American Physical Society. These are the physicists who actually designed and built these missile defence systems. This is what they had to say last July. According to the analysis, the basic science and technology needed to intercept a solid fuel missile would require unrealistically large and powerful interceptor missiles. To get enough coverage would mean putting over 1,000 interceptors into orbit at a cost to the U.S. taxpayer of $40 billion just to launch.
This is a lunacy program. It cannot be justified from a defence point of view nor from an economic point of view.
The other argument is that we are protecting Canadians. How many viewers out there seriously believe that Toronto, Vancouver, St. John's or any other capital in our country is under threat of nuclear attack today? Very few of us would actually believe that to be true.
The American perception is that it is true of them. What is the key to this element? Canada is a huge territory. Clearly, if people are going to attack the United States they must traverse over Canadian airspace.
Once again, this same American Physical Society says that in the unlikely event that either ABMs or lasers could be made to hit a missile, they would not destroy the hardened warhead. It goes on to say that a successful intercept of a missile launched from either North Korea or Iran runs the risk of dropping the missile warhead and its cargo of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons on either Russia or Canada.
We start off with a basic premise that we are protecting our citizens but would we not in fact be putting them in more danger if we were to actually bring these nuclear weapons and have them land on our territory?
The other argument in this whole debate is that it is a free ride; that the Americans are so interested in us rubber stamping their program that they are willing to give us a free ride.
I want to ask the viewers out there whether they really believe that the Americans are going to give us a free ride. Those are the same people with whom we have disputes over softwood lumber and the selling of our grain into the United States. With those events on our plate do we really believe the Americans will give us a free ride? It may well be that they are not asking for money but surely they are asking for something.
It occurs to me that the Americans cannot implement this system properly without some degree of Canadian consent because, clearly, we have this great territorial land mass. They talk about land based systems and sea based system but the logical next step of course is air based systems, and they must transcend Canadian air space to be effective.
It is clear to me that this so-called partnership is really not a partnership at all. We talk about the ability of Canada to sit at the table. The American military attaché in the embassy came here one day and made it very clear that they were not going to run this through NATO or Norad, that it would be run through the northern command. It will be entirely under U.S. command. We therefore do not really have a seat at the table at all. We will be told what to do.
This is not my idea of a partnership. This is the hypothesis of the argument that we have to be involved with them because it will give us a say. I do not think we have a say at all. What we will have to give up and what the cost will be to Canada will be our independent voice in international affairs, something that is respected around the world.
If we are serious about deterring the proliferation of nuclear weapons, why can we not spend just one-third of the money that the Americans are willing to spend on this program in the area of aid? After all, one of the basic things North Korea, a rogue regime, is asking for is economic aid. Why can we not spend money in these areas and try to stabilize these areas of the world?
The United States spends very little time in support of the United Nations. One of its treaties says that its administration is allowed to take unilateral action against anybody in the world that it does not like. Is that really a country that we want to get into a partnership with? Could we not do a lot better in the world and for our nation if we stood up with an independent voice and said that we do not agree with that, that we want to go somewhere else, to a peaceful world?