Editorial Comment: The nuclear age has produced some serious ramifications in terms of the threshold of danger that nations are exposed to. A nuclear weapon mounted on the tip of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) can travel thousands of miles in practically minutes and deliver its awesome deadly and destructive payload to its target with horrific consequences.

Fortunately the old rules of the "Cold War Era" in which the super powers kept each other in check with a countervailing level of nuclear capabilities and destructive powers under the MAD doctrine, (MAD stands for Mutually Assured Destruction) are no longer a present reality due to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of Communism in most of the Eastern Europe. However, new and more serious dangers have emerged in the realm of nuclear threats from rogue states that have developed a capability to develop nuclear weapons, and have stated openly to have no compunction about its indiscriminate use. The rise of several nations in the far East as nuclear powers also is an area of great concern.

In addition the terrorist organizations operating in many countries are feared to have obtained some of the nuclear brief case weapons know to have disappeared from the arsenal of the former Soviet Union. North Korea for instance last year tested a long range missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload, which flew far past Japan into the Pacific Ocean and landed too close for comfort to the North American continent.

The latent and potential danger of surprise nuclear attack is therefore not something to gamble the security of the citizens of Canada or the United States over. Yet our irrational blinded Liberal Government refuses to cooperate with the United States of America in an anti-ballistic missile defence treaty proposed by Washington.

Apparently the Liberals are more in tune with governing on the basis of the leftist causes which their list of priorities indicates, namely; homosexual marriage, homosexual child adoption, decriminalization of marijuana, the right to kill ones unborn child, gun registration of law abiding hunters, while being soft on criminals using illegal guns, euthanasia (yet to come), socialized daycare with the state raising our nation's children, etc.

The federal budget was not a litmus test of the confidence the Canadian people have in this government, but it is time this crackpot leftist crew in Ottawa moves out. Canadians deserve better government willing to protect their national security and their very lives.

US Secretary of State Rice was right to draw this national security matter to the attention of the Canadian public by postponing her visit to Canada.

CCIC Inc.

LONDON - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deferred plans to visit Canada next month because of U.S. displeasure that Canada has opted out of a U.S.-led anti-ballistic missile shield program, a Bush administration official said.

There is no new date for the trip, which had been planned for mid-April.

Rice, in London for a British-sponsored conference on ways to help Palestinians achieve peace and stability, arranged to meet briefly with Canadian officials outside the conference Tuesday afternoon. The Canadians requested the meeting.

"We look forward to seeing the Canadians soon, and are looking for a date when we can make that happen," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday through an aide.

"We were in fact looking at a date, but the schedules didn't work out."

Boucher did not expressly link the delay to the missile decision, but a Bush administration official travelling with Rice in London did so Monday on condition of anonymity.

Canada announced its decision on the missile defence system last week, setting off a prickly exchange between the U.S. ambassador to Canada and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. U.S.-Canada relations were already clouded by strong Canadian opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

An early visit to Canada had been among Rice's early priorities as secretary of state. She plans to visit the United States' southern neighbour, Mexico, next week.

Martin said last Friday that the United States must get permission before firing on any incoming missiles over Canada.

"This is our airspace, we're a sovereign nation and you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission," Martin said.

At the same time, he acknowledged that it was the Americans who would ultimately determine whether to shoot down an incoming missile from a terrorist or a rogue state.

"I don't think that anybody else expected that there would be any other finger on the button other than an American," he said.

Conservative foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day ridiculed Martin's position that Washington would have to alert Ottawa before shooting down a missile.

"These missiles are coming in at four kilometres a second, and if the president calls the 1-800 line and gets: 'Press 1 if you want English, press 2 if you want French, press 0 if nobody's there...' I mean, it's crazy."