No, Mr. Chairman, there is not. As soon as the government is seized with the matter and there is a recommendation, a proposal to make, then the right hon. member and all the members of the House will have an opportunity to express their views on it.
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Supply May 7th, 2002
No, Mr. Chairman, there is not. As soon as the government is seized with the matter and there is a recommendation, a proposal to make, then the right hon. member and all the members of the House will have an opportunity to express their views on it.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Maybe your briefing needs to be better.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Mr. Chairman, that has not been signed yet.
Supply May 7th, 2002
No, Mr. Chairman, there is not.
Supply May 7th, 2002
No, Mr. Chairman. At this point in time the northern command is an internal United States command.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Mr. Chairman, I will not speculate on that because it is still in the early discussion stages. They are just exploratory discussions at this point in time. There is nothing formal to talk about.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Mr. Chairman, we are not waiting for any invitation. Anything that we will be looking at with respect to co-operation will be all fully costed. However, the northern command, which is an internal United States command, would obviously have implications on our budget, but certainly any decision about co-operation will also require us to cost the impact of any of that.
Supply May 7th, 2002
No, Mr. Chairman. We expect it would be minimal. As I said, it is an internal United States command. Depending on what comes out of the discussions about co-operation we will have to examine the implications in terms of resources. At this point in time they are just informal discussions. There are no proposals and there are no negotiations.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Mr. Chairman, the right hon. member is assuming that there will be some sort of a formal invitation. We look at all possibilities of the implications of co-operation with the United States. It is not unusual to do. There are only informal discussions going on at this point in time. When we get to a point where the government has a proposal, then the government will make that known and the right hon. member can respond accordingly.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Mr. Chairman, we will only do what is in our interest to do and what is in the interest of the security of Canadians. It must make sense for us. After all, our first concern is the safety and security of Canada and Canadians.
We share a continent with the United States. We are not on an island unto ourselves. One of our missions is to work with the United States in defence of our continent. We already have a great many treaties and memorandums of understanding. If in the post-September 11 framework there were ways that we could enhance that co-operation, then we would like to do that. However, it does not involve setting up a separate command structure or joining a separate command structure.