Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my remarks, I am sure there will be some costs in this, certainly in terms of Norad personnel as part of the administration and operation of Norad's expanded role in all of this.
I do not believe that we should make any substantive capital cost contribution to ballistic missile defence. If that were the case, we could be looking at upwards of a billion dollars. We cannot afford that. I made that quite clear.
The Americans have not asked us for that and we cannot afford it. If we have an extra billion dollars, some of these other areas that the member talks about are where I would see investing it, although I must say in terms of search and rescue that when we got the new helicopters we certainly beefed up our operation there. When it comes to aerial patrols, we must remember that we do have other means now in radar and satellite opportunities.
There is no doubt that we need more money for the support of our defence operations, for the men and women who risk their lives for this country. If we had a billion dollars, I certainly could think of a lot of other areas that I would consider to be of higher priority, but we can still be with the Americans on our ballistic missile defence cooperation.