Madam Speaker, I would like to run through a few numbers with the government House leader. He said that the Tory-Conservative program for the EH-101s was $6 billion. He will know that I was not a member of that minority government and I would like to ask him a couple of questions about the math on the Liberal side.
The EH-101 cancellation fees were $500 million. The Sea King maintenance and upgrades to the year 2008 amounts to $600 million. Canada's search helicopter program consisting of 15 helicopters is $790 million. The CSH long term service support over 25 years is $1.7 billion. These are Liberal numbers. The maritime helicopter project consisting of 28 helicopters was $2.9 billion.The MHP long term service support over 25 years was another $1.7 billion. The administrative cost in splitting that procurement was $400 million. The total cost of Liberal programs with zero inflation was $8.6 billion.
There are still zero helicopters in that of course and he is talking about the Conservative program for the 43 EH-101s being $6 billion. That is an extra $2 billion plus. That is an amazing amount of money.
What about the lives of the pilots? Of course we could never ever put a dollar figure on that.
Would the government House leader somehow explain and try to justify that since 1978, under the Liberal government of Trudeau, cabinet acknowledged the need to replace the Sea King when in fact those machines had gone into service in 1963. Even after only 15 years of service the Trudeau government said there was a need to replace the Sea King. The Sea Kings have outlasted Trudeau.
Could the government House leader explain that for us, please?