Mr. Chair, I have to say that I am extremely pleased that this question has been raised, because among the numerous concerns so eloquently expressed to us by Canadians from all over the country, one is the highly suspicious and deeply worrisome notion that has been perpetrated by the government, that is, the U.S. actually does not want any money for this. It is not going to cost us anything. We are just being asked to kind of sign on.
I have to say that person after person and organization after organization who have approached us, written to us and made submissions to us are asking, “Who is the government kidding?” The notion is that Canada would be invited to participate in something that is so fundamentally important, supposedly, to our future security--what a notion of security--that it is not going to cost us anything.
Let me say that there have been numerous attempts, and it is not easy to do, to calculate what the full cost may be of this program that is mapped out, the twenty-twenty vision for the next 20 years by the American government. Numerous attempts have been made to calculate what the potential cost is and $1 trillion is the figure that is put forth again and again by American defence experts, analysts and academics. The figure that is cited, if Canada were just asked to pay 1% of that trillion dollars, leads to a $10 billion figure.
I cannot state strongly enough how irresponsible it is, given the constant citing of scarce dollars by the government, to commit us to $10 billion for something that is not going to work, is going to escalate the arms race in this country and for certain will lead to the weaponization of space.