Mr. Speaker, in a way it is the curse of being a great country like Canada that we need a large military. The land mass of Canada is huge. Not only do we need a vigorous military to ensure we can patrol our borders, which are expansive because we have so much coastline for instance, but we also have natural disasters. The Canadian military has often been called upon to help out during disasters and it always does a fantastic job.
Here is something a lot of people do not realize. When those soldiers helped out in Winnipeg and during the ice storm where did the money come from? It came directly out of the military budget. No money was forthcoming from general revenues to help out. This left the military much less capable to provide proper resources, proper funding for pay and all those kinds of things, at that time to ensure that the military was well looked after in doing its primary job, which was and is to protect the country and fulfil our international obligations.