Mr. Speaker, I rose to ask the member a question, but since Your Honour recognized me on debate I thought I would commence my debate.
The hon. member mentioned a couple of things I want to clarify, but first I want to make a comment. I was a bit concerned about some of the statements made by the hon. member for Charlesbourg, some of which were raised by the Minister of National Defence, when he suggested the only province that suffered defence cutbacks was the province of Quebec.
I will say in a different manner and perhaps with a different emphasis that I belong to the maritime provinces where the economy is in very rough shape, particularly in Newfoundland. It hurt me as parliamentary secretary to see my colleagues who occupy 31 of the 32 seats in those four provinces being hit with a tremendous blow because the necessary reductions in defence were done objectively.
I refer to the closing of Canadian forces bases Chatham, Cornwallis, Shelburne and the reduction in CFB Shearwater. These were major economic blows to the Atlantic region. I do not think we have heard any of those four members cry wolf. Despite the hardship it has caused politically and otherwise, they have accepted that it is part of government reduction. It would have been graceful if other members had done the same thing.
With respect to my question to my hon. colleague in the third party, he talked about the procurement policies and how they have developed. He used a bit of politics, which I suppose is his duty as the defence critic and which I accept in good spirit. I wonder if he has read the 1993 report of the auditor general. Does he recall some of the discussions we had in the special committee on national defence with respect to some of the difficulties that the old procurement policies had? The policies took a long time and emphasized the wrong things. By the time the equipment was developed, it was out of sync.
I also want to make another comment and ask him to respond to it. He said that the EH-101 was not an over designed helicopter. I wonder if he realizes that the EH-101 specifications and capability efficiencies were developed at the height of the cold war. By the time the hardware was developed, it responded to a threat that no longer existed.
I wonder if he has taken that into consideration when he says the EH-101 was the best helicopter for the day.