Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am optimistic that you'll make the right decision this time.
This is an important amendment that would seek to give effect to the desire of many Canadians to allow Ukraine to have access to the weapons that it needs to effectively prosecute its war against the illegal, genocidal invasion of the Putin regime.
This would add the following new clause 15.1:
Report
15.1 (1) Within 30 days after the day on which this section comes into force, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services must prepare a detailed plan to increase production in Canada of defence supplies, as defined in section 2 of the Defence Production Act, particularly defence supplies required by the Ukrainian armed forces or the Canadian Forces.
(2) The Minister of Public Works and Government Services must publish the plan, or give notice of its availability, in Part I of the Canada Gazette and in any other manner that the Minister considers appropriate.
The effect of this would be to require the government to develop a plan, and to report on that plan, to increase defence production. This is very important because in increasingly fraught and challenging times globally, which include the war in Ukraine, we need to have the munitions, the military supplies, to defend ourselves, and Ukraine is in vital need of those supplies.
Getting to where we need to be on this requires a plan around defence production, and industry requires certainty and clarity from the government about what that demand is going to be over the long term. There have been messages sent to industry by the government about what the needs may be, but the kind of certainty and predictability that would be associated with the detailed plan that we're calling for would help Ukraine. It would also help Canada because it would provide industry with the certainty it needs to make investments in production that are going to meet Ukraine's needs and Canada's needs over the long term.
This is a good amendment that responds to a vital need—that is, for Ukraine to have the munitions it requires and for the government to lay out a plan in advance that would facilitate the increase in defence production in Canada that would get us towards that objective. This is a common-sense amendment that I don't think anybody should oppose, so I hope we'll have the agreement of the committee to allow the amendment to proceed and to be adopted.
Thank you.