Evidence of meeting #54 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was camera.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
It's still dilatory. We voted on it. It's just moving it forward. If it had been voted down, he would have to change the wording, and he could bring it back in a different form later, but the bottom line is that this motion—
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
In this case this will, in the future, at the committee's discretion, be brought back to the table, and most likely Mr. Bezan will bring that back at a future date.
Ms. Gallant.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
With all due respect, Mr. Chair, this specific meeting was organized to discuss these motions. Here we have a meeting especially to discuss these particular motions, and now you're adjourning debate in a meeting we held specifically to discuss these motions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
It's the will of the committee.
The committee decided on this particular motion. There's a whole bunch of them. There was a reason given and there was a dilatory vote. This is the will of the committee. That's the way it works.
Mr. Bezan.
Conservative
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Through you, Mr. Chair, on April 3, here's a motion I gave notice of:
That the Committee call for documents from the Department of National Defence in regard to the 'laundry list' of capital expenditures that will be affected with the reallocation of $8.5 billion dollars in the National Defence budget which the Minister of National Defence referred to during Question Period on the 24th of March, 2017.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
For those who don't have one, the staff is handing out the motion. I had a little bit of a different version.
Melissa Radford Committee Researcher
There were two similar motions on the same day.
Liberal
Conservative
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
One is a call for documents and one is for a study. They're two separate things. I'll do them one at a time.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Yes, that's fine.
The one he's referring to was just distributed by the staff. The one that was handed to you is a call for documents.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Okay. This one is a call for documents, which is quite different from having a study on this.
During question period on March 24, the minister did refer to a “laundry list” of capital expenditures, of $8.5 billion that was re-profiled, as he calls it, or reallocated. We'd like to know what that's for. Based upon some of the analyses done by experts, including David Perry, they can only account for about $5 billion of it. We aren't sure where all that money was being sent or whether it was an actual cut rather than an investment.
Let's ask the Department of National Defence to produce those documents so we can see the full accounting. Now that the defence policy review is complete and the document is out there, there shouldn't be anything stopping the government from providing us with a fulsome list.
