Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Portneuf for summing up what he saw during a tour of our military bases.I was also on that tour.
Earlier, the minister of defence blamed the Tories for leaving our armed forces in a really poor state. You know, it is always easy to blame others. One is never to blame, it is always the other guy's fault.
There was no deficit in Canada before 1973. The first one to open the door to a deficit was the current Prime Minister of Canada, who bragged about being the first finance minister from Quebec to become prime minister. I do not think it does us great credit.
Anyway, it is easy to always blame others. I have noticed several things. Let us use the example of our armed forces. In Trenton and in Petawawa, some members of our Canadian Forces told us that they had been waiting eight months for a pair of boots. Our soldiers in Bosnia buy kevlar equipment from the U.S. military, because we are unable to provide them with what they need.
Two years ago, the Auditor General of Canada told us in his report that the RCMP had 4,000 hats in storage in Ottawa. Some people have too many hats, others have to do without boots. There is currently a lack of warm equipment for those who are posted to Alert. What is the problem? It may lie with our suppliers who are probably not getting as much as they think they deserve, because they are not providing us with anything. Have we come to the point where our soldiers will have to provide their own rifles and their own bullets to join the army? We are almost there. Eight months for a pair of boots, does that make any sense?
Let us move on to housing. Our colleague said he was concerned about the welfare and health of the members of our armed forces and their families. The committee visited military housing. I do not know whether he would want to let anything live there. There was two feet of water in the basement and military personnel were told to keep quiet, they were not renting the basement.
They get a $100 increase and end up with $46 after taxes. The cost of food is raised from $200 to $425 a month and housing costs are raised by $125 or $150 a month, and military personnel are told they should be content with that.
Morale has bottomed out. The military are exhausted. The armed forces are demoralized. Meanwhile, the minister is spouting fine rhetoric, saying he did this or that well. The armed forces, however, are a disaster. Something has to be done to raise their self-esteem.
Corporal Paquette in Trenton, a francophone, with a quadriplegic child whose only hope is to one day learn to speak, cannot obtain the services of a remedial teacher in French to teach his child to speak. After 17 years of service he is told “If you are unhappy, why don't you go home to Quebec and leave the forces?” This is the way our soldiers are being treated.
I see the member for Mégantic—Compton—Stanstead nodding, because it is true. He was there and heard the testimony with me. When will all this come to a stop?
Millions of dollars have been wasted. I remember the cancellation of the privatization of Pearson airport. Doug Young, the minister at the time, said it would cost us a maximum of $25 million. Last time I looked, the government was being sued for some $500 million because of this purely political decision.
I agree that the purchase of helicopters was not the greatest decision by the party previously in government, but its cancellation cost us an arm and a leg. At some point, there is a need for consistency, for logic.
I would ask my hon. colleague, who does an admirable job in all areas, but especially in this one, to tell us what he thinks of the well-being and the morale of the military. Perhaps he would give us some details.