Mr. Speaker, as we said, only 16 per cent of French-speaking officers in the Canadian Forces graduated from the college in Saint-Jean. They are giving the impression that officers who attended Laval University, the University of Sherbrooke, the University of Montreal, the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi or the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières instead of the college in Saint-Jean are not as good because they did not go to a military college.
With our smaller armed forces, the military college is no longer necessary. The Leader of the Opposition told us we should cut defence spending by 25 per cent. If we had followed his advice in Quebec, we would have closed not only the military college in Saint-Jean but also the military base in Bagotville and probably other bases in Quebec. But we found the Opposition Leader's proposals unacceptable under the current circumstances. We must maintain a certain level of employment and a higher level of military forces than he recommended.