Mr. Speaker, the Liberal record on these matters has been operation appalling, not Operation Apollo. The first indication that it is operation appalling is that the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, which is supposed to be sent over and is on 48 hours’ notice, is about the same size as the elite regiment formerly known as the airborne.
Rather than sending an elite regiment like we could have had with the airborne, the government for reasons of political correctness went ahead and disbanded the airborne. It is now thinking of sending a regiment that up until today it was thinking of disbanding. Shame on the minister. That is part of operation appalling.
Due to the fact that the government does not have enough troops and that there is a shortage of money and recruits, it is approaching people from Edmonton and Winnipeg to bolster the third battalion. The minister has failed to meet the recruiting targets in the white paper he so boldly talks about.
Let us imagine that. We have a regiment that was established in 1950 during the Korean war. For the sake of political correctness the minister would go ahead and disband it and poach troops from other parts of the country to bolster his sad record.
I will once again point out something I asked the minister during question period. I pointed to the sad situation where he stood in the House three years ago and said the Sea Kings would be getting their appropriate renewed communications systems. That was not the truth and the minister knows it full well.
The minister stood in the place where he sits now and told the House the Sea Kings would get their communications equipment. He said it was being done as he spoke. Three years later it has still not been delivered. The minister point blank did not tell the truth. He failed his forces.