Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here.
It has been eight years, and we have seen $10 billion in money that was supposed to be spent on our Canadian Armed Forces lapse, and we didn't get the equipment we needed on time.
We know you're cutting a billion dollars from the budget right now. When we look at where you projected your SSE spending to be, it's $25 billion under where it's supposed to be by this point in time. This year alone, you're underspending SSE by $6 billion. That really talks to the underinvestment in our Canadian Armed Forces.
We all just saw the video from Admiral Topshee, in which he talked about the condition of our navy. It's going to be another 15 years just to replace our frigates. We have these new AOPS, but we can only take out one at a time because we don't have enough sailors to man them. Something has to give.
Minister, can you tell us if we are pulling out of the Indo-Pacific with our frigates if we don't have enough manpower? Are we no longer going to participate in the Maritime Task Force under NATO?