Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary to the minister of public works to perhaps enlighten us a bit more on the procurement strategy. All along we have been told by the government that the procurement strategy would be based on the cheapest cost, whereas the treasury board guidelines for procurement under article 9.1.1 are as follows:
As stated in the policy, the objective of government procurement contracting is to acquire goods and services and to carry out construction in a manner that enhances access, competition and fairness and results in the best value or, if appropriate, the optimal balance of overall benefits to the Crown and the Canadian people. Inherent in procuring best value is the consideration of all relevant costs over the useful life of the acquisition, not solely the initial or basic contractual cost.
As I already said to the previous Liberal member who spoke, there is a difference of $3.2 billion from the Liberals' own 1994 numbers. Their numbers state it will cost $3.2 billion to procure new helicopters, whereas if they had kept the original EH-101 plan it would have cost $5.3 billion or $5.1 billion.
I would like to hear the member's comments on procurement, on the fact that the government changed the rules for this contract, on the fact that it is not listening to the military advice its own defence department is giving, and on the fact that it has stepped out so that the Prime Minister could take his pen and write “no helicopters” across the paper. It has adapted, bent itself backwards and swallowed itself whole in order to do that.