Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to thank my colleague from the Reform Party for his excellent and very instructive speech on the work of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Since he did not say why he had decided to support the government's proposal to create an ad hoc committee for this review and since there is already a parliamentary committee on National Defence, could he tell me why he thinks this committee is necessary? And how can he justify these additional expenditures? There is no doubt that with the creation of this ad hoc committee the regular committee will be free to study other issues, but why this ad hoc committee? Why would we allocate special sums of money for travelling across the country? It seems to me that the Reform Party has repeatedly asked that we cut spending. Why does the hon. member think that we should put extra funds at the disposal of this group of parliamentarians and senators to consider a new approach, a new Armed Forces policy? How can he reconcile this with his party's position?