Mr. Speaker, the member talked about figures being used on this side of the House as if they came out of comic books. He also talked about the great deal and the amount of savings to the government in the present tender call. I remind the member that a six pack is cheaper than a dozen any day of the week. Let us compare apples and apples when we talk about costs.
When the minister spoke this morning he talked about the different references that would be included in the tender call. He did not mention the word commonality.
A study conducted for the Department of National Defence by one of the minister's associate departments showed that by choosing the helicopter that could do both services, over $257 million in 1990 dollars could be saved.
Could the member table those figures to show that there is no other avenue the government could have explored? Would he tell us if the government considered the commonality factor when assessing the tender call to make sure Canadians got the best bang for their buck? We are not talking about saving money here, we are talking about saving lives. It is not the dollar value that counts, it is the service and equipment we get for the dollars we spend.