Mr. Speaker, maybe it is only the Minister of National Defence who can remember the situation back in 1958 at the height of the Cold War. I know his career was probably just beginning then.
At that time, the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia was at its height. There was tremendous fear in the free world of what the Russians were capable of doing. In fact, they demonstrated it many times with their testing of hydrogen bombs, et cetera. At that time, it was imperative that not only North America but the free world would bind themselves together in treaties to protect themselves from the incursion of the Russian threat.
Those times are now gone, but there is a new threat, as was demonstrated on September 11, which was a reminder that we still have to cooperate as a free world, as a portion of North America, to continue to demonstrate our willingness to participate and to cooperate with the United States for the protection of our continent. The original reasons for the development of Norad and the present reasons are very similar, and I think most welcome by the citizens of both countries.