Mr. Chairman, this is a real thrill tonight to lead off these five hours of questions to the Minister of National Defence. I thank him for being here with his parliamentary secretary, with his officials and with General Jeffery. I welcome all of them.
What I want to do tonight with my time is to ask short questions and hopefully get short responses so I can make the best use possible of my 20 minutes. In the spirit of providing better accountability to Canadian taxpayers I hope the minister and his officials will respect that format.
The minister on page 2 of the estimates stated that spending increases starting in fiscal 2001-02 to 2006-07 total more than $5 billion. This statement has been made repeatedly over the past few months. I would like to know what the defence budget is in this fiscal year?