Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the interlude from the parliamentary secretary. I stated earlier something that the defence committee chairman mentioned, and I should have referred to him as the chairman of that committee.
I appreciate that someone from small town Ontario trained at Cold Lake and ended up being the best. That is good news. I congratulate the fellow who won the contest. I spent an hour in a CF-18 in June 1993 with an excellent pilot. There are fabulous people in the military.
The point that the parliamentary secretary and the entire government needs to understand is that these people are terrific in spite of the government, not because of it. Think how much better they could be if they were not nervous about flying, sailing or driving in some of this overly elderly equipment.
The member talked about writing up a completely new, watered down version of a self-congratulating motion saying we are wonderful. There are serious problems with that. The motion brought forward today is not a recommendation to give ourselves a pat on the back and see what else we can do. It is a strong condemnation or sense of concern about what in the world the government is doing. To say that someone talked to two military people and everything is tickety-boo is simply not the case. Members on the government side have bases in their ridings and they know what an unbelievable frustration this is for military personnel.
There are 58,000 people in the military right now and it is hopelessly undermanned. The Grey Cup will be held in Edmonton at Commonwealth Stadium on Sunday, November 24. The entire military could fit in Commonwealth Stadium leaving thousands of empty seats. There is seating there for about 63,000 people. With our land mass and our shoreline that needs to be protected, and our sovereignty that we talk about, our military would fit inside Commonwealth Stadium. Using that analogy alone tells me that our military is not big enough.
This member should realize that the government should not be patting itself on the back with this kind of amendment it wants to put forward to replace today's opposition motion. When we are that seriously undermanned, underfunded, overdeployed, and have increasing numbers of missions and decreasing amounts of money, then something is seriously wrong. I recommend that the parliamentary secretary go back to the drawing board and see if he can come up with something that is not quite so self-congratulatory.