Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by making a comment on the number of speakers in this debate and previous evening debates we have had this session. There were a number of debates, including this one, where we had more speakers than could get up. I know one lady who has been very passionate about defence in North America could not get on our roster tonight. On Monday night I had to send one of our chaps home and in the previous debate I could not get on, so I hope the government will be open to extending debates in the future so that more members could speak.
I have a great interest in this having been chair of our foreign affairs and defence caucus two Parliaments ago and on the defence committee last Parliament, but most important because it is of interest to my constituents. Although we are not discussing missile defence tonight, I will go on record that not many of my constituents were very happy when the former Prime Minister listened to the people of Canada and made the decision not to join missile defence.
Norad has worked well since the Ogdensburg Agreement in 1940. There have been thousands of incidents and this has been a very good arrangement for the protection of Canadians. I referred earlier to an incident which occurred in my riding in Whitehorse where U.S. fighter jets escorted potentially highjacked Korean planes into the Whitehorse airport and of course there could have been significant damage in Alaska or in Canada. It is a very sensitive situation and it is fortunate that we had an agreement where everyone was cooperating and working together.
Unfortunately, in that situation there was a lot of miscommunication with the Korean airline itself and then down the road it took a long time to get a full evaluation of the situation. As I said earlier, I hope the people working on the ground with these agreements in the future will take into consideration the local people who probably have no idea about these agreements and how they work. They need to be fully informed as to what happens after these situations occur.
I would like to close with a number of questions. I know in the spirit of the debate the government takes it seriously or it would not have had this debate. Conservatives are open and want to listen, so I hope in that spirit they, perhaps before the vote, could get back to me in writing, or perhaps the department of defence, to some of these questions. They are just interpretation questions on the agreement itself that I am curious about and it will give me a better feeling. Some are technical questions about some of the words.
First, if Parliament votes against this agreement, I assume the government will not ratify this agreement, but I am curious to hear about that. I want to read a section of the preamble and then ask a question about it. It says:
ACKNOWLEDGING that space has become an important dimension of national interest and has become an increasingly significant component of most traditional military activities, and that a growing number of nations have acquired or have ready access to space services that could be used for strategic and tactical purposes against the interests of Canada and the United States;
And then Article I:
1. The primary missions of Norad in the future shall be to provide:
b) Aerospace control for North America;--
I wonder exactly what that means. The preamble talks about space and more activity in space. What does this aerospace control for North America mean in relation to the sections in outer space? What activities would occur there? What surveillance, and more important than the surveillance, is the actual control function? What would that mean in outer space?
The next paragraph in the preamble states:
REALIZING that a shared understanding and awareness of the activities conducted in the respective maritime approaches, maritime areas and inland waterways, including the capacity to identify vessels of potential interest, are critical to their ability of monitor, control, and respond to threats so that their shared security is ensured;
I would like more interpretation of what that means in our inland waterways. In particular, what control or surveillance would be undertaken, for example in the Great Lakes and maybe in the Ottawa River beside the member's riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke, and in particular in the Northwest Passage? We have a bit of a dispute at times as to who might own the Northwest Passage, as to which nationality the waters belong, or whether they are international waters.
My fourth question relates to a section in the preamble as well. It says:
RECOGNIZING that, despite arms agreements, large nuclear arsenals still exist, deliverable by strategic ballistic missile, cruise missile or long-range aircraft capable of striking North America.
I have been at a number of meetings where a number of parliamentarians, not me, but others have suggested there are no large nuclear arsenals threatening Canada at the moment, that any large nuclear arsenals are in the hands of countries that for whatever reason cannot or would not ever be attacking North America. I would think that a majority of parliamentarians think it is small isolated or illegally traded nuclear weapons and not large nuclear arsenals. Those should be referred to in this agreement if we are going to refer to anything.
My fifth question relates to disputed territory. Members who wanted to make sure they understood this agreement and might have had concerns wanted to know where the control would take place related particularly to maritime activities. Because it only talks about surveillance of maritime activities, my understanding from the debate is that the actual control and any enforcement, et cetera, would be done by the ships of the nationality in whose waters the incident occurred.
How is this going to be dealt with in disputed waters? For instance, there is a large section of the Beaufort Sea where there is a dispute between the United States and Canada. Canadians say that we own it. If we put a line between Yukon and Alaska and go straight up into the ocean, we say we own everything to the right or east of that, yet the United States has put out oil leases in that area and the U.S. considers that it owns that water.
If it is only the ship of the nationality where the crime is occurring, and there have been interdictions of illegal ships going into that area, not American or Canadian, which ship is going to enforce that and what type of arrangements have been made? What type of cooperation arrangements have we made for disputed areas?
My last question relates to the amending of the agreement. It is right at the end of the agreement. It says, “The parties shall meet to review this agreement and consider possible amendments, under a mutually agreed mechanism, at least every four years or at the request of each party....The parties may conclude such further arrangements as necessary to advance the objectives and purposes of this agreement, including mutual support arrangements with other commands and agencies”.
If they are going to make the amendments under a mutually agreed upon mechanism, what is that mutually agreed upon mechanism? Canadians do not know. Members of Parliament who are going to be voting on this bill do not know. Exactly what mechanism might be used to amend this agreement?
This agreement may be totally acceptable to parliamentarians. In fact, I assume it is going to pass by a large margin, but these amendments made by a mutually agreed upon mechanism which no one knows about may lead to something that is totally unacceptable to members of Parliament.
The final part of that is “may conclude such further arrangements as necessary to advance the objectives and purposes of this agreement, including mutual support arrangements with other commands and agencies”. Does this mean that by signing this agreement, by agreeing to ratify this agreement if we vote in favour of it, we can bring out all the other divisions of the armed forces and make all sorts of other arrangements as necessary? It is open-ended.
I would feel much more comfortable if I could get a letter from the Minister of Defence, in the spirit of the cooperation we have had in the debate tonight, to--