Mr. Speaker, as we approach Remembrance Day it is fitting for the House to devote the debate today to the sad neglect of our military, which has become the hallmark of this government's defence policy.
It is indeed sad that the Prime Minister is always quick to take credit for the work of the Canadian men and women who, as members of the Canadian armed forces during peacekeeping missions, clearing snow in Toronto or helping the people of Manitoba during the floods, perform their tasks faithfully and well.
It is the same Prime Minister who refuses to listen to members of his own party, the military, the public and our allies who state that the Canadian military is in crisis.
The federal government has always focused debate on military equipment. It knows that by focusing debate on expensive, new military equipment it can divide the public over the need to modernize the Canadian military. This tactic of divide and conquer has masked the reality of the policy of neglect.
I will focus my remarks on the true casualties of the Liberal government policy to underfund the military, the people. The women and men who work in our military, either in uniform or in the many support roles as civilian defence employees, have been fighting a slow, losing war of attrition that has moved morale to an all time low in our armed forces.
As a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, on more than one occasion I have listened to witnesses from the government talk about the need to improve the quality of life for Canadian Forces members and their families.
The reality, and I refer to the April 2002 report of the Auditor General, is that the Canadian armed forces has been reduced to some 52,300 trained and effective members, with another 5,300 not yet trained and others on medical leave or retirement leave or were unavailable for administrative or disciplinary reasons. As well, some 3,300 positions at the time of the Auditor General's report were vacant.
Based on those audited numbers, the Auditor General concluded that there were not enough trained and effective personnel in the Canadian armed forces to meet occupational demands with the effective trained strength having dropped eight percentage points in one decade.
What does that mean to the men and women who are currently serving? On any given day approximately 8,000 Canadian Forces members, or one-third of our deployable force, are either preparing for, engaged in or returning from an overseas mission. If one takes the numbers, almost one-half, 45% of our Canadian armed forces are not available for deployment.
Just to demonstrate the way our military is being mismanaged, out of 52,300 members, Canada has 8,500 forces members at Ottawa headquarters with no base to run.
Canada is committed to more and more peacekeeping missions and fewer people are available for deployments. While some forces members have seen five, six or seven overseas missions, we have Canadian Forces members with 15 or 20 years of service who have never been deployed overseas, yet at Ottawa headquarters members still dress in battle fatigues every day and walk to work with a briefcase.
This has placed an almost unbearable strain on serving members who are expected to wade out into the fray of some civil war in some far off country and then come home to life as usual.
What has become abundantly clear to the men and women on the frontlines is that it is not life as usual when they return from an overseas assignment.
In the past, mechanisms existed to support the solider. The regiment looked after its own. That does not happen to the same degree as it did in the past as it is now Liberal policy to dismantle the regimental system.
The base community that once existed is being torn apart by the government policy decision to increase base rents to the point that families are forced off the bases into the general community that in too many cases is not equipped to deal with the special needs of military families, particularly those military families that have to deal with the stress of separation from loved ones for longer and longer periods of time as it takes for those individuals to resume their family life.
Family resource centres on military bases across Canada are reporting increased levels of crisis intervention. Death rates and, more worrisome, suicide rates are skyrocketing as the government buries its head in the sand over the stress and strain it is placing on Canadian Forces members.
It is no secret that since the Princess Patricia's returned from Afghanistan a record number of soldiers have applied to leave the military. This in turn will put increased pressure on those individuals who remain in the service.
The other great tragedy is the push to put Canadian Forces members in unsafe conditions because they do not have the proper equipment to do the job. Unlike the rest of us, if we were placed in an unsafe working condition we could say no. For a member who is serving in the military, saying no is a career decision.
While the Liberal Party makes a political football out of the need to replace the 40 year old Sea King helicopters, we remember Major Bob Henderson, a father of three, and Major Wally Sweetman, who died at the controls of their Sea King helicopter, burned alive after making an emergency landing that saved the lives of the other two crewmen who managed to scramble to safety before they too were engulfed in flames from the burning helicopter.
I will quote from retired Canadian Forces fighter pilot Laurie Hawn who wrote to the Prime Minister last year saying that she hoped for the military's sake that his legacy would not be bloodstained by the loss of loyal air crews in the Sea King during the years they should have been serving us in their new aircraft.
The legacy is also bloodstained with the deaths of Captain Colin Sonoski, who the people in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke remember during the time he was stationed at Canadian Forces Petawawa, and Captain Juli-Ann Mackenzie who died piloting a CH-146 Griffon helicopter. They died on the evening of July 18 this year during a search and rescue mission they should have never been called out on.
The Griffon helicopter is basically a commercial helicopter painted green. There are currently 98 Griffons in use in the Canadian armed forces and of that number 9 are being used in search and rescue, primarily as combat assistants.
In the case of the 444 combat squadron, it was to support the allied training program. The two young pilots, Captain Sonoski and Captain Mackenzie were called out because the proper search and rescue helicopters were not available.
Those are just a few of the examples of the policy of neglect that has characterized the Liberal Party's mistreatment of our military and the incredible burden it is placing on the men and women who serve in our military.
In the September 2001 budget, the government announced $396 million to be allocated to the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness in response to the tragic events of September 11.
How did the Department of National Defence respond to this influx of cash to DND for this particular purpose of preparing Canadians for emergencies? Did the money go to fulfilling previous promises, some made by the government as recently as 1997 by the previous defence minister to upgrade the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior, an institution that had been operating in that community since 1942? No. The first thing to happen was the creation of more bureaucracy and in this case a new associate deputy minister by the name of Margaret Purdy.
What was Margaret Purdy's first act as new associate deputy minister? Arnprior was not good enough, not grand enough for her. She immediately set out to build a bureaucratic empire in Ottawa. For her way of thinking, why not. Let us spend the $396 million on buildings and expense accounts and who knows what else to build an empire.
What about the staff of the college and the people of Arnprior? When was the department was going to let them know about their jobs? They were not going to let them know. Once again a decision was made in which the people at the Department of National Defence are run over roughshod at the expense of the safety and security of all Canadians.
It is not good enough to talk about military issues only in the time that leads up to November 11, Remembrance Day. My wish is that the new Minister of National Defence, a thankless job if ever there was one, will keep faith with those whom we remember on November 11, as well as those who are currently serving as members of Canada's Forces.