Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's opening remarks congratulating me on my new responsibilities. It is an honour to stand in this place and to serve with such an honourable Minister of Defence and with this new government.
The member raised the question of where this whole negotiation might lead, where things might go in the future. With all due respect to my colleague, those are hypothetical questions that we cannot answer. The current situation is clear. We have made it clear to Canadians and to all countries that are listening that we will not participate in a missile interceptor system at this point. We will not participate in operation or development and that is the bottom line.
We have also made it clear that we are not going to initiate discussions about where this might go in the future. That is simply not part of the plan. Thankfully, the U.S. ambassador has confirmed to us that he--I cannot say never--will not ask us to participate in these sorts of projects.
For the time being, let me put the fears and concerns of my hon. colleague to rest and assure him that this is not one of the plans of this government despite the fact that we are moving very strongly on a number of other areas.