Mr. Speaker, the minister's answer conflicts with a recent study which said that in fact Canada's military is now 4,000 short, but it will be a startling 17,000 members short by the end of 2002 if the current trend continues.
The minister will go down in history as the man responsible for killing Canada's military through funding cuts, through delayed equipment replacement, and now through a critical shortage of personnel. Is the reason for this critical loss in personnel the weakness of the minister, or is it a deliberate plan on the part of the government to destroy Canada's military?