Mr. Speaker, there is a principle in law called stare decisis and it means what is decided before. Much of what we are talking about is the Canadian character and who we are.
We have to look at what we have decided. I recall that this House was nearly torn apart in the debate over the Bomarc missile and whether the Bomarc missile was going to have a nuclear warhead on it and what was the involvement of Canada. Eventually we decided to have the Bomarc and the government of the day decided to put nuclear heads on those missiles at some point.
We developed the DEW line in the north to defend North America. We entered into Norad. The House will recall that on September 11 it was a Canadian that was in charge of the big button at Cheyenne Mountain.
We are already engaged because we have decided in the past that it is the Canadian character to defend North America and participate. Of course, when there is a new envelope, a new frontier, we must carefully look at that.
However, if we are looking at the Canadian character, we must also look at where we have been, who we are, and what we have previously decided. Is the future question in character with who we are? I think that is the essential question. What is the technical point of the philosophy of the Canadian character? What are we really deciding?