Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague who just spoke. I think he brought up a very important point, namely the distribution of funds and Quebec's share of DND funding. The perception is that Quebec is very well served in this regard. Of course, we want to hold on to the jobs we have and of course, we willingly
accept the benefits that come with these jobs. This debate gives us an opportunity to demonstrate once again how Quebec is not getting its fair share.
I believe my hon. colleague said that Quebec has only about 15 per cent of the jobs in the industry, whereas we account for 23 or 24 per cent of the country's population. He mentioned that the province has only 13 per cent of all military infrastructures and is allocated only 15.8 per cent of DND's overall budget. This is a very important consideration for us.
Disregarding for the moment the historic injustice of which we are the victims, I think the hon. member put his finger squarely on the problem, namely that the government is trying to gain some time by holding debates-and this one is particularly untimely and premature since the Department of Foreign Affairs has not yet decided what role the Department of National Defence will be called on to play in international policy.
In closing, I would just like to say that I agree completely with my hon. colleague about the proposed committee. We already have a perfectly adequate national defence committee. To set up a joint committee with senators would be a waste of time. The time has come to take action. The government must make some decisions. That is what it was elected to do. So, it should act and stop setting up committees.