Madam Speaker, the hon. member just gave a speech, indicating some of the ideas that he has as to where the government could effect some savings in national defence expenditure.
Somewhere out there is a misnomer that perhaps some provinces do not get a great economic impact from national defence expenditures. One place that is fairly great is in the province of Quebec. Indeed colleagues on my side of the House and employees of members that I know from the province of Quebec have little understanding about the great and very positive economic impact of national defence expenditures in that province.
I remind the member that for 1992-93 according to the data I have received from national defence, in excess of $2 billion-that is a lot-is spent directly in the province of Quebec by the Department of National Defence.
I would ask him to go a little bit further. One of the things that sometimes is not put into the right envelope as far as benefits are capital projects from Atlantic Canada. We have the frigate replacement program which is out of Saint John, New Brunswick. Many of those vessels are being built in the province of Quebec. Indeed the Department of Industry has indicated clearly that for every dollar that is spent in Atlantic Canada on capital projects, about 44 cents of it goes to Ontario and Quebec.
Therefore the major impact of defence may be at least 50 per cent more and perhaps even double. There is about $3 billion to $4 billion in that economic impact in the province of Quebec.
The member from Trois-Rivières indicated that he had a petition from some people in his riding. They basically said that they thought there should be even further cuts.
The hon. member knows that there are both civilian and military personnel employed in his riding and that his riding benefits to the tune of at least $4 million to $6 million. Would he be willing to forgo that $4 million to $6 million infusion from national defence, both civilian and military employees, grants and other purchases, to put into other ventures in his riding? Would he agree with the petitioners that he mentioned that we should slash $4 million or $5 million from Trois-Rivières?