Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comments, but I am certainly not an expert on the military, not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it is important to note that when we have a budget as large as that of the Department of National Defence, with $12 billion of taxpayers' money, there are always things within that budget that probably could be dropped as far as expenditure items go. The issue of tanks has been raised and I think that is an important issue from the standpoint of how we modernize our forces.
The Minister of National Defence has said that we need a certain amount of money to keep the forces sustainable until we get a major review of defence and foreign policy. He is definitely on the right track there. He is bang on in this situation, because what we need within a defence review is an examination that takes into account the revolution in military affairs and the changing technology of the military. Tanks have been fingered as a possible area where we may cut. The important thing is that right now we are looking at light armoured vehicles that have a significant direct fire capability, which is very important, but there may be other platforms developed, especially by the Americans over the next few years, which will essentially replace the tank with something lighter and more mobile but a platform that is just as lethal.