Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my colleague for Compton—Stanstead to speak to Motion No. 73 put forward by the Bloc member. I will say at the outset that the Progressive Conservatives, at least the member for Compton—Stanstead and myself, will be supporting this private member's legislation when it is voted on sometime in the near future.
I have heard Liberal members give excuses as to why it is not necessary to have a special committee struck to deal with procurement in national defence. They used excuses such as transparency and openness being in place now. Liberal members also state that procedures are in place which allow Canadians to believe that they are well served and well protected by the process currently in place. I would suggest that is not the case.
This motion came forward because the hon. member believes that the committee system we currently have does not seem to be working in this particular area. I believe that the agriculture committee, on which I sit, works fairly well, is open and transparent. I am very pleased to say that the majority of the government members who sit on that committee are open to honest discussion and honest debate. Some of those members are here today and that was not meant to try to endear them to my heart.
There are certain committees which work, but that does not seem to be happening in the defence committee. Unfortunately there does not seem to be openness when dealing with estimates. There does not seem to be openness when the minister appears before the committee. When members of that committee do not have the opportunity to get the true facts, then obviously it means there is a necessity to put other options forward. This is, in our estimation, a reasonable option under the circumstances.
Let me give the House an example of the efficiency that was spoken of by members of the government. Let me tell members about the cost effectiveness of this government when dealing with military procurement. Let me deal with a very simple example, that of the procurement of the EH-101 helicopter.
The government would love to forget about the EH-101, but that procurement took place rationally, logically and nominally. An agreement was reached to buy helicopters which were required by the Canadian military. However, the Liberal government, in its own fashion and in its own way of wasting Canadian taxpayer dollars, decided at the stroke of a pen that it would, through political expediency, not accept the contract that was negotiated, developed and in place at a penalty cost in excess of $1 billion to the Canadian public. In excess of $1 billion of Canadian public dollars was expended needlessly by the government because of political expediency. That in itself speaks to the need for some type of committee watchdog that will put some openness and transparency back into the system.
A government member recently said “But we do have a watchdog. We do have that backstop. We have the auditor general who comes in and if there should be any improprieties in any part of the process, then that watchdog will look at all of the papers and documents. He will go through all of the process and then he will come forward and say that this was wrong”. He is right, that is what the auditor general does.
The auditor general provides a very valuable service. The problem is that no one listens to him on the government side. They do not listen to the auditor general. They turn a deaf ear and they simply continue with the same type of political expediency that is now in place.
The motion proposes the idea of a committee being struck to deal with expenditures in the military of over $100 million. That is a lot of money. The motion itself reflected that when it spoke to the number of $100 million. Anything below that certainly can and will be dealt with by the department of defence and the treasury department.
The government says that this cannot happen because there is an operational requirement for the Department of National Defence and if we had a committee it would stop the operational necessities of the department. That is not true. One hundred million dollars allows the normal operations of the Department of National Defence to continue. However, there should be an opportunity for anything above $100 million to be vetted by Canadians.
The government talks about Canadians having a return on investment. Canadians need a return on their investment right now. This is one area in which this could begin. If the committee system worked it would not be necessary. If investigation by the auditor general worked it would not be necessary. Unfortunately we can point to too many problems associated not only with this department but with the government.
We will be voting in favour of this motion. We will continue to strive for openness and transparency when it comes to procurement by the Department of National Defence.
In closing I would like to cite two other examples. One of them was a contract that was not tendered but was awarded to Bombardier for $2.85 billion for training. It was done by the Liberal government. I do not think Canadians were well served by that particular contract, which was not negotiated.
The other example I would like to touch on briefly is that of alternative service delivery. ASD makes sense, to a degree, but unfortunately there is no openness, there is no transparency and there is no ability for Canadians or parliamentarians to be able to put forward their opinions on this particular program. That is why a committee of this nature would be a good operational necessity for parliament.
I stand on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party and the member for Compton—Stanstead to say that we will support this motion. I wish the government would only listen. It does not understand that what it is doing now does not resonate with the Canadian public. It does not understand that what it is doing is wrong.
All we have to say is EH-101 and I am sure Canadians will understand.