Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Dewdney—Alouette for his most appropriate question. The debate we are having today is about the condition of our armed forces and especially the condition of our soldiers when it comes to their pension requirements and especially when it comes to the problems of funding that we find ourselves in because of the lack of commitment from government members over the last 10 years.
I talked in my speech about the funding cuts that we have seen, unfortunately. The government has been scrambling over the years to try to increase some of the funding in certain areas that have been hit so hard. When it comes to the way the military men and women can do their jobs, in spite of the government, they still do a great job.
Specifically when we look at the record of the soon to be prime minister who was the former finance minister during the time of the majority of the cuts to defence, close to $20 billion which I identified in my speech were taken out of the military budget. That is incredible. How can we expect the military that is so revered around the world to meet the commitments on a daily basis, let alone on an international basis with our commitments with our allies, with the incredible cut to that particular funding?
Now we are seeing a complete flip-flop by the soon to be prime minister saying that he has a strong commitment to the military and he is going to make that a priority. Where was he over the last 10 years when he was in charge of signing those cheques? He was absent as he is usually in some of the debates that we are having.
Clearly, if the government is going to talk about the military and talk about its commitment to defence, my hon. colleague has it right. The government sure has not demonstrated it over the last 10 years. I question the new prime minister's motives when he talks about the idea of committing to the military. How in fact can we trust him to do that? He has talked the talk before but he sure did not walk the walk.