I agree with your statement. I think we were on the right path with the 2017 defence policy; it's just not enough. It's the right direction, but it's not enough.
Now we're seeing talks about reducing the budget or not having it grow. The fact is that all of these key investments are coming in the mid-2020s and then should be present in the mid-2030s, but we know it's always delayed and always costs more.
We're not talking about reducing from 15 to 12 combat ships. These sorts of talks—I hope they're just rumours—mean that there's a reduction of capacity, not just maintenance.
The 2017 defence policy is not about growing. It's about maintaining Canada's military capacity. What we're talking about today is how we could grow that. We're not even close to that.