Thank you, Chair.
Minister, I'm glad to see you at committee.
I must say that I'm disappointed with the defence policy update. There's no sense of urgency here.
We have war raging in Ukraine. We just witnessed Iran attack Israel last night. We have seen war throughout the Middle East and in the Red Sea, and we are witnessing a powder keg that's about to explode in the South China Sea and the strait of Taiwan, yet all the promises you're making and the explorations you're doing don't really happen until after the next election. In typical Liberal fashion, it's dithering, it's delay and it's kick the can down the road.
We're hearing stories about our troops using food banks and relying on food donations. You've said yourself that the recruitment and retention crisis has put the Canadian Armed Forces in “a death spiral”.You have said that we're short 6,700 military housing units right now. We have troops who are living in their cars. They're living rough. They're living in tent cities. We hear those stories all the time.
You can look at the media that cover the DPU. The titles are “The new Liberal defence policy's in no hurry to face dangerous global realities” and “Don't be fooled, Trudeau doesn't care about defence” in the National Post. In The Globe and Mail, it's, “With our outdated defence policy, Canada isn't prepared for today's threats”. It goes on and on, with this one in The Globe and Mail: “Canada's new defence policy commits to exploring, instead of committing”.
I think that when you look at what academics are saying, what military experts are saying and what the news is saying, it's that there's a lack of seriousness here in the defence policy update.
My question for you is that Minister Anand, in 2022, when she kicked off the DPU, said that there were going to be “aggressive options” to get Canada to 2% of GDP spending to meet the NATO commitment, and there's no commitment in this DPU. Why?