Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his brilliant speech. He raises a point which I noticed on a number of occasions. I live in the riding of Chambly which, as you know, is adjacent to the riding of Saint-Hubert, where the base of the same name is located, and where, each spring, some 75 to 100 members of the armed forces would be transferred from the base to another location, and vice versa.
There is one aspect of the costs which the member did not mention, but I essentially agree with his comments. In a given year, some 20 colonels and majors posted to Saint-Hubert would buy houses in Saint-Bruno, which is in the riding of Chambly, and borrow perhaps $100,000 from some bank for that purpose.
The following year, these same people would be transferred elsewhere in Canada. It would cost them some $5,000 in penalty to liquidate their mortgage. They also had to pay $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 and sometimes even $8,000 or $10,000 in commission, depending on the value of their house, to sell that house. Since these people would often not manage to sell their house, the
government relocation services would take the house back and support it for quite a while.
These people would then relocate in another Canadian city. I know that, in Ontario, members of the armed forces currently enjoy mutation rights on property transfers, for amounts of $1,000, $1,200 or $1,500 spent by the government as refunds. All these benefits were in addition to those related to the move and which the hon. member who spoke before me just mentioned.
Consequently, the transfer of military personnel from Saint-Hubert to Petawawa, and vice versa, involved huge amounts of money.
I would probably be stunned to hear the actual cost of this musical chair exercise within the armed forces. However, I will admit that this was not necessarily a bad thing for those who benefitted from it, including myself as a lawyer. Still, we could not help but wonder how a country that claims to be orderly and one of the best as a member of the G7 group-at least this is what we are told by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance-could manage in such a way.
I want to ask the hon. member if he had an opportunity to look at this aspect of military transfers in Canada.