I think we have to put this in perspective. Most of our major allies like the United Kingdom and the United States, for example, and even France, are absorbing deep cuts to their military budgets. To be clear, they started with larger militaries because of their traditional roles in this respect, but the United States is looking at a sequestration of upwards of $40 billion out of its defence budget in this fiscal year. The United Kingdom has seen enormous cuts to their military budget, while in Canada we've been going in the other direction. That's simply because we prioritized this at a time of economic uncertainty and fiscal restraint. I think it reflects the fact that this government has made defence a priority. Now it's true, Mr. Chair, that supporters of the military would love to see increases in resources by orders of magnitude, but I think they're realistic in understanding scarce resources, and that relatively speaking the military budget has been maintained or increased slightly as a share of overall government spending since 2006.
On May 13th, 2015. See this statement in context.