Madam Chair, I totally agree that we must have a serious debate about this issue; however, I would ask the hon. member if we cannot at least get the basic facts straight.
When we talk about a missile defence shield, as if this were going back to the time of trying to defend against the Russians, the Chinese, and everything else, surely the hon. member and his party will recognize that is not what this is about. This is a limited land and sea based system which is designed to deal with rogue states and would deal with a very limited form of attack.
All these strategic theories that were put forward which would be destabilizing in fact persuaded me some years ago that we should be engaged in this type of thing. The world has moved on and 9/11 has occurred. Things have occurred and we have moved on. There is a different strategic atmosphere today.
Is the NDP willing to talk about that new strategic atmosphere in which we operate, in which Russia has said that it does not have a problem with this. China is looking at it with a totally different attitude. We are trying to deal with the possibility, it may be narrow and difficult to foresee, it may be in fact something that a lot of people have trouble conceiving, but it is a possibility, and our American friends are willing to do it and we are looking at whether or not we should discuss with them the possibility of looking after North America in this remote possibility?
Should we not at least be willing to be engaged in that discussion? Or does the hon. member think we should just turn our back on this possibility and say that we do not want to be there because there is some sort of religious principle that would oppose it?