Mr. Speaker, there has always been in the capital program of national defence spanning a 15-year period the need to replace certain types of equipment. Those allocations were made.
Over the last number of budgets, including those of the former government, $21 billion has been cut off the projected expenditures for national defence, including a lot of the capital program.
We announced yesterday that we will be cutting $15 billion out of the capital program over the next 15 years for planning purposes. With respect to helicopters, I am surprised that the hon. member would make the assertion that we do not need to replace helicopters when he knows that the Sea Kings and the Labradors are coming to the end of their life.
Even if he does not agree that our state of the art ships and our refurbished destroyers should not have combat helicopters on board, surely he, from a province that has a coastline and uses the search and rescue facility, has to agree that the Government of Canada will be committing a grievous error if we did not make provision for new equipment even on the search and rescue end which is purely civilian.