Mr. Speaker, Canada has contributed to Norad over the years. We currently contribute about 10% in terms of economic participation. There are many things we contribute to Norad, but ultimately, when we are talking about sovereignty, it is Canada first.
When we say Canada first though, it is not Canada only. People want to isolate Canada from the United States. Members of the NDP want to isolate Canada from the United States and pretend that by doing this, we are protecting Canadian sovereignty. In fact, we are jeopardizing Canadian sovereignty. The worst possible thing we could do would be to pretend that somehow Canada and the United States are physically separated. It is just not reality.
Earlier someone mentioned, I believe it was the Minister of Public Safety, that no man is an island, no woman is an island and no country is an island. Canada is certainly not an island. Some members of one of the parties in the House do live on an island. I think it is called Fantasy Island, if they think that we can isolate Canada from North America when it comes to shared responsibility, shared sovereignty and security concerns.
There have been many times, and I should not give a specific example, when American forces have bailed us out in times of need. We do contribute person per person, aircraft for aircraft, just as capably as anybody, but there are times when we just do not have enough and we have to rely on the Americans to supply the rest of the pieces that are missing in helping them support us in our Canada first objective.