Mr. Speaker, the minister talked about money for defence, but this year in the budget he got $250 million and the auditor general said $1.2 billion just to break even.
Ambassador Cellucci put it pretty bluntly yesterday when he said that some people, including Liberal backbenchers, see further defence co-operation with the U.S. as a threat to Canadian sovereignty but find it perfectly acceptable to rely on the U.S. to provide lift to deploy Canadian troops.
We should not have to rely on the U.S. air force or commercial airlines to get our troops abroad or repeat the GTS Katie fiasco in trying to move our tanks and equipment.
Like our U.S., British and European allies, will Canada finally develop its own strategic airlift capacity?