Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport recently announced that federal cuts to British Columbia's research and development had gone too far.
What does the government do? It closes the Esquimalt defence research detachment and moves it to Halifax. This will cost the taxpayer over $5 million per year in lost contracts and $8 million in moving costs. It will decrease British Columbia's research staff to only 1.4 per cent of the national allotment, eliminate our world leading Arctic research facility and decrease our ability to capitalize on far east markets, all this in the year of the government's self-proclaimed year of Asia-Pacific. Even the defence department officials call this a blow to research.
What is the real reason for the closure? It is to coerce the people of Nova Scotia to vote Liberal in the next election.
Once again the government is shafting the people of British Columbia to save its own political hide.