The member says the Tories bought it. If the Tories bought it why did they not get rid of it the first year they were here? They got rid of a lot of other things.
It is literally unbelievable the December budget ignored what every one of these experts said. Canada's security needs and the Canadian sovereignty itself have been placed in a perilous position. Why?
For one, we can no longer pull our weight in international coalitions, thus reducing our influence and our credibility. Nothing was more evident than that today and what happened just before the House sat for question period.
Our navy is unlikely to be able to sustain its task group deployment beyond six months due to personnel shortages and other gaps in naval capability. The navy only has two operational support ships left, making it impossible to sustain a task group in the Indian Ocean and still support our ships in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
What did we hear yesterday? One of our ships is sitting idle in Victoria Harbour. If it were sitting in the harbour in Montreal or somewhere a little closer in central Canada it might be put into use but it is in British Columbia. The Prime Minister has only visited B.C. for 15 days in the last couple of years usually for Liberal fundraising dinners. He had 39 days in Florida, Jamaica or wherever.