Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member for Lakeland. He is doing an excellent job as defence critic. He is with the program, as the saying goes, in complimenting members of the Canadian armed forces. I commend him for that.
I want to allay some fears and misconceptions that may exist regarding the budget of the military. In the last three federal budgets the government has raised military spending by $3 billion to bring Canada up to seventh in NATO.
I know members do not want to hear it but if we talk about military spending in actual dollars Turkey spends $7.7 billion and Greece spends $3.3 billion. Luxembourg spends $90 million, as members have said. These are the barometers we are using.
Let us compare GDP, which is always nice if there is nothing else to compare to when looking for something to find fault with. The second in GDP is the United States. The U.S. has the largest military budget in the world at $343 billion. When comparing budgets and numbers we should bring it into real dollars.
Does the member recognize that Canada is seventh out of 19 NATO countries in military spending in actual dollars? Does he recognize that the military is the federal government's largest budget? Does he know that it is the largest employer in the federal government and the holder of the most assets?
The member may realize that people sometimes see the military as an easy area in which to make cuts, but he should recognize that the government has elevated military spending by $3 billion in the last three budgets.