Madam Speaker, as is my custom and as this is my first speech since parliament reconvened, I want to thank the constituents of Saint-Jean, who have put their trust in me for a third time. I am very pleased to represent them in this House.
Since I have 20 minutes to speak this morning, I will give the House some incredible examples of injustice in my riding of Saint-Jean, particularly where national defence is concerned.
There are several issues underlying today's debate. People talk of transparency, but what has become transparent to me is that there has been political interference in the issue now before the House.
Let us not forget about Canadian content, because it is always the same Canadian and Quebec taxpayers who have to foot the bill. I think it is important to raise the issue of Canadian content in this debate. Let me give as an example something that happened in the riding of Saint-Jean.
I had the opportunity recently to tour, with the Minister of National Defence, Canadian military facilities in Eritrea. We heard nothing but praises for the new armoured vehicle, the LAV III.
I remember asking the Minister of National Defence, here in this House, why that contract was given to GM, in Ontario. In my riding of Saint-Jean, Oerlikon had the expertise to carry out the turret part of the contract. I wanted to know why the turret part of the LAV III contract was not given to Oerlikon, in Saint-Jean. The minister skirted around the issue but did not answer the question. My goal was to create more jobs in the riding of Saint-Jean, in Quebec, which is still part of Canada.
In the end, the armoured vehicle was built by GM, in Ontario, and the turret, by Devco, in California. What I said was “It does not make any sense. The taxpayers of Canada and of Quebec are paying for this, and our money is being used to create jobs elsewhere”.
We are talking about something very similar here today. I will show, as my colleagues have done, that the process before us is not completely transparent and that some companies are at an advantage while others are at a disadvantage. This is bad in the context of Canadian content.
Let me give a brief outline of the whole story. It all began at the end of the Mulroney government. I clearly remember that. There was an election campaign and the government wanted to buy the Cadillac of helicopters, some fifty of them, at a cost of $5.8 billion.
I also remember that the then leader of the opposition, who is now the Prime Minister, kept repeating “We are going to cancel this contract”. To the point where people later described it as a farfetched election promise. The Liberals had promised all sorts of things, so they had to at least fulfil some of their promises. And they fulfilled that one.