Harper, Bush and BMD

PM Harper will be in Washington on Thursday to visit his new, best buddy George Bush and the topic du jour will definitely be security, security, security. The primary question now is: will Harper allow Bush to drag Canada into the US's beleaguered Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD/NMD) program? And, since Harper seems to be on such a military spending spree lately, will he promise to fork over Canadian taxpayer money for Rummy's endless adventure now that North Korea had rattled its sabre?

On May 12, Harper's Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor announced they would allow the House of Commons, the main chamber of the Canadian Parliament, to hold a free vote on whether Canada should participate in a new NATO ballistic missile defense program.

"If we reached the stage where it appeared that we were willing to enter into an agreement on ballistic missile defence, we would bring it before Parliament for a vote," O'Connor said.

The NATO missile defense feasibility study was approved last week at alliance headquarters in Brussels; it was launched at the 2002 NATO summit in Prague.
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The only 'unkown unkown' is how the Liberals would vote. Will they find themselves being attacked as weak on national security (as the Dems are wrongfully labeled in the US) if they refuse to support such a motion? Or, will they be able to launch a widespread public information campaign detailing the difficulties already encountered by the US government's program which, even after having had billions and billions of dollars spent on it, has still so stunningly failed?