Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this supply day motion, and I commend the member of the Conservative Party for bringing the motion forward.
This is an extremely important issue and I am quite stunned listening to the parliamentary secretary to the minister. He makes it sound like everything is just great in the military. He indicated that the equipment is top notch, that things are going in the right direction and that everything is fine. I will talk a little about that toward the end of my presentation because the defence minister said the same thing at the defence suppliers' conference.
I will talk about how the attitude that everything is okay really does not bode well for the replacement of the helicopters or for the military generally. That kind of attitude in the minds of and coming from the lips of the minister and the parliamentary secretary certainly causes me great concern.
The motion is about having a fair and open process for replacing the Sea Kings. I do not think anyone would argue that the Sea Kings are in need of replacement. However, this motion may turn out to be entirely irrelevant.
I heard a rumour this morning that the government already has a plan in place to deal with the Sea King problem. The plan is to put ejection seats in the helicopters. God knows, we cannot afford to lose as many pilots as we are losing helicopters as these helicopters drop from the sky.
The government plan, and this is just a rumour, is to put ejection seats in the helicopters and apparently the contractor can put in an inflatable life raft. The pilot will need to blow it up when he is in the water, but there will be a life raft attached to the seat and everything will be fine. No one have not quite figured out how to deal with the roof of the helicopter coming off and some other little details, but the government does have a plan in place for dealing with the Sea King problem. I say this tongue in cheek. It is obviously meant to be humorous but it is not really funny.
My nephew flew a Sea King out of Halifax for about five years. He did not seem too concerned about it when he was single and before he had a child. He knew the Sea Kings had problems on a regular basis and that they were ditched quite often. He knew they flew in some of the most difficult conditions on the face of the earth.
My nephew is a young fellow. He already had a commercial licence when he went into the military. He wanted to fly an F-18 but unfortunately the government cut back that program just as he enlisted, so he went with the Sea Kings. He was committed to the military. He wanted to do his job and do it well, and he did. For the length of his contract he flew the Sea Kings.
His attitude, I sensed, changed when his first child was born. As parents we often think about life a little differently when we have the extra responsibility of a child. I sensed at the time he had the child that he was not happy at all to be flying those old Sea King helicopters. He knew the risk to him was greater than necessary. He was willing to take a risk. I never sensed that he was ever ready to back off on a risk, but he knew the risk was greater than could be reasonably expected.
For that reason, when it came time to renew the contract he did not want to fly the Sea Kings any more. He wanted to get back into the F-18 program. They had been losing pilots. He was trained on a twin engine machine the same as the F-18s. There were a lot of similarities, which might sound a little surprising. He told the government he wanted an assurance that he would go back into the F-18 program if he was to renew his contract. He could not get that assurance. A trained pilot with years of experience was lost because the government has no serious commitment to the military.
I will talk about the minister's attitude and what he said recently at the conference. However, with that kind of attitude in place, I do not see an awful lot of hope for the future of the Canadian military as long as this minister and this government are in charge. I am very concerned about that.
The Sea King replacement program is not new. The Sea Kings are from 1964. They are almost 40 years old. My nephew, when he started flying them, was under 25 years of age. He was so much older than the Sea Kings that it is not even fair to compare their ages. It would make him sound like an old man.
Replacing the Sea King was first talked about and seriously considered in the 1970s. Here we are in 2001 and there is still no real commitment to replacing them. I do not think the commitment is there.
Both the Sea King and the Labrador search and rescue helicopters, which are flown by the air force today, were slated for replacement with the EH-101.
Members of the Conservative Party and the governing party have been back and forth on the issue for some time, each saying their program is less expensive than the other. In reality, the program which was put forth by the Conservative government, when we compare apples to apples and equipment to equipment and do a fair comparison, was a much better deal than the deal the Liberals are considering now.
The $500 million cancellation cost is lost. The cost of replacing the helicopters is greater when we compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. When buying military equipment a bare bones helicopter is probably less than half the cost. The equipment put into it is the greatest cost. That is what we must look at when we compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.
The points have been made by members of the Conservative Party and countered, completely inaccurately, by members of the governing party. The issue has been dealt with. What I will talk a little more about is the government's general lack of commitment to the military.
What we heard last week at the conference of defence associations was startling. The defence minister and the chief of defence staff both proclaimed that the Canadian forces, with fewer than 60,000 soldiers, was in better shape than at the end of the cold war when it had 80,000 men and women in uniform.
The minister responsible for the Canadian military stood at the conference and said that things were in great shape, the military was better than it was 10 years ago and that we were doing a great job. Someone without a clue about the military might think that was great because it is better than it was 10 years ago.
Unfortunately for the minister, the very next speaker was, who? The very next speaker was Major-General MacKenzie, a well respected man in the Canadian military and a respected analyst of the Canadian military. He stood right after the minister and said that the army could not fight and that the uniformed leadership should have a right to say so. He made it clear that we have terrific men and women serving in the military. The problem is the lack of commitment on the part of the government to replace equipment, such as the Sea Kings. The problem is the lack of proper training and the lack of money for the military. The little bit of money added to the spending today will not solve the problem.
Right after the minister stood up and said that everything was okay, we had Major-General Mackenzie saying that things were an absolute mess. When he asked for a show of hands from anyone at the conference of defence associations who honestly believed the military was in as good shape as it was 10 years ago, not one hand went up.
Anyone who knows anything about the military knows that if a defence minister stands at a conference like that and says that things are great and that they are better than they were 10 years ago, the minister either does not know what is going on or he does not care. It is one or the other.
When we have a minister who thinks like that and says things like that, what hope is there for getting an acceptable replacement for the Sea King? What hope is there for getting acceptable equipment in any area? What hope is there of getting proper uniforms for our men and women?
When I was deputy defence critic three years ago we were debating soldiers' uniforms and basic things like personal kits, and the debate had already been going on for a couple of years. Today we send men and women on overseas missions without proper, basic equipment like uniforms. What kind of commitment is that to our military? It is disgusting.
I know that my time is up and that my colleague for Edmonton Centre-East will be sharing the time.