Mr. Speaker, my colleagues have repeatedly made representations to the government on how we can increase the funding and where it should go to make a more effective customs and revenue agency. I echo the member's comments to say that the men and women who work for customs and revenue have been trying to do a very good job under very difficult circumstances.
For years my colleagues have repeatedly put forth suggestions to the government on how to improve the system but they fell on deaf ears until this catastrophe took place. We will continue to put forth suggestions on how to improve both domestic and international security.
On the issue of defence, we have advocated a $2 billion infusion into our defence budget urgently.
The House may be interested to know that in terms of ourselves and NATO, Canada spends the second lowest amount of all NATO countries in terms of a percentage of our GDP on military. That is sad. We have known this for a long time. A year ago NATO rapped our knuckles because we were unable to meet our commitments internationally.
We have asked for a $2 billion infusion into defence. We would like to increase our percentage of GDP from about 1% today to at least 1.5% in the future. We feel that is a reasonable amount to bring our armed forces up to snuff.