Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that it is the member's first speech in the House of Commons. It was great to hear him put forward his point of view in this important debate concerning the future of Canada's military.
I do not believe I heard him address the issue about Canada's combat capability. What we are discussing and what we would like to find throughout the debate today is where each party stands when it comes to the commitment to Canada's military.
I heard him talk about the disastrous state of some of our equipment. I would certainly agree with him, although I do recall that earlier in the debate, before question period, that one of our Liberal colleagues accused some of us in the opposition of saying that all our equipment was junk. I certainly want to be on the record, as I have been in the past for the Conservative Party, that it is not the case.
We know, for example, that we do have some state of the art equipment, but there is not enough of it. He was quick to point out that we had state of the art LAV III light armoured vehicles that were well respected and appreciated by our armoured troops, especially when they were overseas in dangerous situations. That is not to say that, because we have the vehicles, we do not need helicopters to replace the Sea Kings or submarines that will operate properly without catching fire or springing leaks.
I would ask the hon. member this question, as I have tried to ask of the New Democratic Party. Exactly what is the Bloc Québécois commitment when it comes to adequate funding for Canada's military? It is very clear we took a lot of heat in the election campaign when we said unequivocally that if we were elected as the government on June 28, we would put an immediate infusion of $1.2 billion into Canada's military and we would move rapidly toward the NATO average in terms of a percentage of GDP.
We were very clear on that in the Conservative Party, but it is very difficult to get that type of detail from the other three parties. When I asked that question of New Democratic Party members, they said that they wanted to go through a review process, that they were all in support of having a defence and a foreign affairs review to see where the money should be spent and that the money needed to be spent wisely.
My fear, and in the past year when I served as our party's defence critic I said it repeatedly, is that I did not want to see the need for a defence review to become the excuse for doing nothing for our men and women in the military. There are very real needs there and there are things that we will have to do regardless of the outcome of the review.
I would like to know very clearly where the Bloc Québécois stands on this issue and what it means when it says that it will make a commitment to preserve and restore the integrity of the Canadian military.