Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Oak Ridges for his comments. I am always quite interested in the reserves, being a reserve member for six years many years back.
I find the member's comments, where he is talking about what we have done for the reserves, going in the wrong direction. Yes, we have added numbers to the reserves but we have cut down their hours. We have cut them to less than half and also we have cut out all the exercises they do. So what we are doing is cutting out their training. We are not giving them a chance to train properly. So instead of getting higher quality reserves, we are lowering the quality of our reserves and they do not deserve that, particularly since we are using reserves an awful lot these days overseas. It is important that they get good basic training at the reserve level so they can continue on at the regular level.
He was also talking about preparation and equipment and I thought I would mention at this point our submarines. He mentioned the 1994 white paper. The white paper was quite clear that we needed those submarines and it was a good deal. That was four years ago. We finally ordered the submarines, but it will take a couple of years for them to get here.
In the meantime this month we have another submarine that is being decommissioned and another one will be in September. That will leave us with one submarine. That is our total fleet. We will go for a couple of years with one submarine. It is not very logical. That submarine will not be out too much.
Maybe the member would care to comment on that.