Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Calgary West for his question because I think it is a very important one to Calgary. It is pertinent to Calgarians and to the military.
The base has been moved. One thousand acres of prime real estate are sitting in the heart of Calgary. What is that worth? Just the raw land itself is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
That is not the only city. Edmonton has a sizeable chunk of land in its centre, 640 acres of prime real estate, and Griesbach barracks that will be turned over to whom?
Where will that money go? There is a squabble going on right now regarding what is going to happen to the land in Calgary. The member for Calgary West knows full well what is happening there because it sits right in his riding.
Who is going to be taking all those luscious dollars that are going to come from the sale of that land? Where will they go? There is no legislation anywhere that shows what will happen to the land to be dispersed. It will have to go up for development in some fashion.
Was it a political move to get rid of the military? Absolutely. I do not see any other reason for moving the base out of Calgary to Edmonton. The infrastructure in Edmonton was a disaster and it still is a disaster. In fact, our soldiers are living in squalor for the most part, those taking part in the program for military housing. It is disgusting. Sewage is backing up.
There was no excuse to move the Calgary military base to Edmonton. There was no advantage whatsoever. It was a political move and it is costing hundreds of millions of dollars, much more than the $65 million that the government put on the price tag for making the move. We have not seen the end of it yet.
Getting back to the land in Calgary, there has been no compensation offered to Calgary for the move in the first place and the land is still up for dispute regarding what will happen. I think it will be worth looking into.
My intent is to further examine the agreement between the city of Calgary which is a major player in this affair and DND or whoever is looking after that land.
It does not seem like there is a whole lot of consideration on the part of the Liberal government to pay any attention to what it meant to move the base from Calgary to Edmonton.
When we look at the bottom line on that move, there were only four Liberal seats in the province of Alberta before that move was made. They moved the base from Calgary to Edmonton because Edmonton was where the four seats were. Lo and behold, now there are only two Liberal seats left in the entire province of Alberta. Hopefully at the next election there will be no seats. I am sure members would be pleased to hear that. It would sort of solidify Reform's position in western Canada for good reason because of the abuse we have been suffering at the hands of the Liberals over the last several years.