Debates of Oct. 21st, 2004

Supply

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, allow me to take a few moments to greet my voters in Saint-Jean. This is my first speech in the House since the election, and I would like to thank them for placing their trust in me a fourth time. I have very little to do with that. Like everyone in Quebec, the people of Saint-Jean have realized that, right now, the Bloc Québécois best defends their interests. I wanted to tell the people of Saint-Jean that I am very pleased with the position they have taken and that I will serve them to the best of my ability in the coming months, however long the House gets to sit before the next election.

Today, I am pleased to outline the position of the Bloc Québécois on the matter before us. In the Projected Order of Business, it is under “National Defence Policies”. The motion brought forward by the Conservative Party does deal with national defence policies that are “out of date”. But in our opinion, there is a contradiction in that motion. While that statement is made in the first paragraph, reference is also made to the need to inject substantial funding to maintain “air, land and sea combat capability”. We can say immediately that we will not support this motion, and I will attempt to explain why.

I have heard the Minister of National Defence and his parliamentary secretary tell us that a defence policy is on the way. I just want to remind the minister that we have been hearing the same thing for a number of years, and we have been waiting and waiting. They may sound serious about it this time, but former minister Eggleton was also serious, and so was John McCallum. Still, the defence policy never materialized.

Now, this motion—we also criticize the government on this aspect of it—is suggesting that more money be injected to upgrade a number of things. Granted, the Canadian Forces lost a great deal of credibility in recent years, probably because of underfunding. We must not forget, however, that the defence budget increased by about 40% these past few years, from $8 billion in 1998 to $13 billion today. This means that money was injected.

This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but we have always been opposed to the investment of additional funds. Why? Because we do not know where we are headed. When a small family decides to buy a vehicle to commute to work, it will probably not get a ten-wheeler. It may buy a small Volkswagen if it does not need a bigger vehicle than that. A construction contractor who needs a vehicle to carry material for his business may get a ten-wheeler, rather than a Volkswagen.

Here, we do not know what the new policy will be. I remind hon. members that the defence policy is obsolete. It dates back to 1994. In terms of the security of Canadian Forces—and this is true at the international level—September 11 has changed everything. For decades, centuries and even millenniums, armies always fought each other in uniform. We knew the enemy, we could face it in a theatre of operations. We could see its manoeuvres. We studied its doctrines, which were often millenary doctrines, to know more about its concept of a theatre of operations and to find out how it wanted to win its wars. Since 2001, all this has radically changed. We no longer see our enemies. We know who they are. We know that they probably belong to some extreme right or extreme left militant groups, but they do not dress in a specific fashion to show who they are. They do not say, “I am wearing a uniform today because I am defending a cause and I intend to attack you”. This completely changes the doctrines that we have known for thousands of years.

As I said a moment ago, September 11 changed that. The world's strongest army—everyone agrees that it is the U.S. army—is not even able to counter this type of attack. The Americans were not able to anticipate the September 11 events. Investigations took place. Will a space defence shield protect us from the use of aircraft to destroy buildings and hit Canadian, American or European interests?

Will the country with the strongest army, the biggest infantry, the biggest air force, and the biggest navy in the world, in other words the Americans, be able to protect us? No, they will not.

This is why we have been calling for several years now for the policy to be reviewed. In the meantime, we see what the government has been buying. The minister has touched on this, and I have some examples as well. Some $7 billion in procurement has been announced.

There are a number of comments to be made on this. For instance, the purchase of new vehicles, the Strikers, seems to suggest that we are embarking on a more offensive policy, and this is the topic of much debate.

Then there are the tanks. Some people in the Canadian army are not entirely in agreement with the old tanks being scrapped and replaced by wheeled or tracked vehicles that are certainly not tanks.

Much has been said on this topic. We are hearing from a number of lobbyists, “We cannot let the tanks go. Look at what is going on in Iraq. They are needed”. So the situation is far from clear.

What is more, the lobbyists and major armament manufacturers are the ones profiting from this. They are doing their job well, convincing the government to make purchases, even though Canada has no defence policy and we have no idea where we are headed. We see this regularly. The troops heading off to Haiti lacked equipment and it had to be borrowed, for the simple reason that we have no defence policy.

What do we want, and what in particular do Canadian and Quebec taxpayers want? That is important. There have been all these purchases made, submarines in 1998, the Strikers, the Sikorsky helicopters, many things that could be discussed. The taxpayers were not consulted, yet they are the ones that have to foot the bill.

The world has changed, we must admit. It is different, of course, than it was 2,000 years ago, but it is also different in the aftermath of 2001. Before investing in anything, why not take time to collect our thoughts. Do we want strike forces? Do we want to go along with the Americans?

We are hearing more and more about this desirable interoperability with the Americans, but there are consequences for Canadian sovereignty.

Indeed, if we want to interoperate with them and deploy combat soldiers within their battalions, at one point or another, should the Americans decide to go to Iraq or elsewhere, these soldiers may be obliged to go along. We may also be obliged to buy from American suppliers if we want to be completely compatible and operational with them. There are all kinds of impacts.

Having a defence policy would clarify the issues before we embarked on this kind of purchase. Now, we go ahead and buy equipment before deciding on what kind of military force we want.

The danger here is that we might adopt a policy right now because we feel that the current situation makes no sense, that we cannot leave our Sikorsky helicopters docked or on our ships' flight decks because this no longer meets our needs. It would therefore be highly risky to formulate a defence policy on the strength of the equipment we have, given the equipment we have just bought.

That is why we oppose such purchases and announcements. It's not that we are against the Canadian Forces. We think they have a vital role to play. I think that a sovereign Quebec will also need armed forces. But we will certainly have a policy in place before creating any armed forces and we will know where we are headed before buying military equipment. Naturally, I hope that we might get some of the Canadian equipment, but we will broach that subject in future negotiations.

I would like to come back to the subject of equipment. I spoke of helicopters and the Strikers. The throne speech talks about an extra 5,000 soldiers and more than 3,000 reserve forces. Right now there are perhaps 50,000 or 55,000 soldiers. So why should we want any more? Is it to send them on peace missions? Is it to send them on offensive operations alongside the Americans? The throne speech does not say.

The approach is piecemeal. We have bought submarines, helicopters, Strikers and new Jeeps to replace the old Iltis. This may be useful.

If we had a defence policy stating clearly that our troops would be equipped in a certain way to carry out missions as defined in the policy, it would make a lot more sense. We are putting the cart before the horse.

I would like to raise another point and that is the missile defence shield. Once more, we are getting announcements about this issue and we can all confirm that there have been changes in the past two years. I remember that two years ago my colleague and I asked questions about the Canadian government's intentions to join the American missile defence system. The answer was, “Oh, no. We are maybe just having a little discussion with them”. Now the discussions are big time. Moreover, the NORAD treaty has just been modified. This is all part of getting ready to join the Americans—toward the end of November according to the latest rumours.

So, what is the 1994 National Defence policy concerning the missile defence system? The Reagan-era star wars policy was already outdated in 1994. But it still has an impact and growing importance today. And yet it is not in line with the 1994 policies of either Foreign Affairs or National Defence. It is a typical example.

I think our point of view is clear. In Quebec, we come from a pacifist country. As for this kind of weapons, we think there are already enough weapons on earth. We must invest our energy in treaties and conventions that promote disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons. In fact, that is one of the major arguments used to undermine our position against the missile defence system—Canada is breaking its multilateral tradition. In fact, we have agreements with a number of allies. The whole world recognizes the importance of Canada in the international treaties and protocols on disarmament and non-proliferation.

Participating in a missile shield program now means losing this credibility. This presents a danger, because this credibility was long established. It earned Lester B. Pearson recognition, in the form of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him for creating peacekeeping missions. Canadians and Quebeckers are renowned for their contribution to a more peaceful world, not to an increasingly militarized one. We have noticed changes in that respect since the new Prime Minister took office. The way to get closer to the United States is the military way. On that, we can tell the government it is completely wrong. It should focus much more on economic concepts and contacts with the Americans instead of encouraging American military industries and getting closer to George W. Bush on the militaristic path. We have a great deal of difficulty with that. As far as we are concerned, it is no: no to the shield, no also to the acquisition of equipment without a defence policy.

I will conclude on this. As I said earlier, my colleagues and I come from a peace-loving country. Had it not been for us—and I say so in all modesty—I think Canada would have participated in the war in Iraq. The government felt it was important to align ourselves with our American friends. But we denounced the illegality of this action. Today, even the Secretary-General of the UN says that it was an illegal war. I think that, had it not been for Quebeckers, Canada would have followed the U.S. into Iraq. And look at the mess now. We were right before. If we had a defence policy and a new foreign affairs policy, we would have a framework, parameters, procedures to work with. We would have a stronger basis for justifying the acquisition of this type of equipment over that one and participating or not participating in projects that can present dangers for our diplomacy and our peaceful tradition.

It is not surprising that we cannot agree with this amendment. As I was saying earlier, the motion before us today states that the defence policy is out of date. If it stopped there we would vote in favour of the motion, since the defence policy truly is out of date and we do indeed need one—although we have been hearing promises for a long time. However, we have a problem with the second paragraph, which talks about maintaining our air, land and sea combat and peacekeeping capabilities. We do not even know what the defence policy is going to be.

I would also ask the minister to be transparent when he establishes this defence policy. So far, everything has been done in closed circles.

I gave some examples earlier. The minister decides to make an announcement on something, and no one is consulted except maybe the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister's Office, of course, but that is it. A handful of individuals are deciding what the taxpayer will pay for, under what conditions and why. Taxpayers can just keep paying their taxes and this group of individuals will decide for everyone what we will do.

I remind the minister that his policy is completely out of date, unless he buys new equipment and adjusts his policy accordingly. However, we think that would be a terrible mistake. First we have to look at the world we are living in and how we want to take part and then we can buy the equipment necessary to satisfy the conditions of the new defence policy, or the new foreign affairs policy.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will be voting against this motion. I find that Quebeckers were right to say no to the war. They are traditional and pacifists. We are very proud of not taking part in the war in Iraq. We are soon going to be very proud, as Quebeckers, to have an army that is much more peace-minded than militaristic.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the Bloc for his questions, but I really have to take umbrage at many of his comments.

First, so many people in the province of Quebec have contributed so much for so long to the Canadian Forces and have done honourable work to defend this nation here and abroad. I think he is really remiss in his comments in not acknowledging that fact.

To be a pacifist is all well and true, but the fact of the matter is that the milk of human kindness does not course through a lot of people in this world. It is sad to say that some of those people take actions against individuals, most of whom are civilians, and today more than 90% of the casualties in conflict are innocent men, women and children.

The government is putting an investment into our military. We know that we have some specific needs today. We know we have some critical needs and that is why we are putting 5,000 people on the sharp edge and 3,000 in reserves. We have purchased four new critical pieces of equipment and we are going to do more.

I want to ask my friend the following question. How does he propose that we as a country are going to defend innocent civilians in cases such as what we saw in Rwanda, what happened in Sierra Leone and what took place in Bosnia? How are we going to defend innocent civilians when people who are quite nasty are going to slaughter them? Are we going to ask our troops to sit back and watch? Are we not going to contribute? Or are we going to do the right thing under certain circumstances and be there to defend those people?

At the end of the day, does he or does not agree that peacekeeping is war by another name and we had better outfit our troops to be able to accomplish that objective?

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer both parts of the hon. member's question.

First, I do not know whether his father was a World War II veteran. Mine was. I remind the hon. member that Quebec was opposed to that war. Because we were stuck in the Canadian straitjacket, my father, like many Quebeckers, helped free Europe. He took part in the liberation of Holland. This experience had such an emotional impact that it traumatized him, to the point where he could hardly talk about it. He saw some of his friends come back in baskets, without arms or legs.

Later on, Quebeckers felt that the best way to deal with military issues was through diplomacy, conciliation, mediation and discussion. We do not like wars. However, I agree that we may get the call to go. If so, we will go.

I remind the hon. member that I trained with the Royal 22

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Regiment, the Vandoos. I was deployed in Bosnia with its troops and I am proud of the work that these people are doing.

If the hon. member wants a debate on peacekeeping, we are more than willing to participate. We advocate this approach, because it is more peaceful. I feel that our troops do a very good job as peacekeepers.

However, we have a problem with the government deciding, without any defence or foreign affairs policy in place, to buy more weapons in order to get closer to the Americans. This is what we are trying to tell the government. It must first develop a policy, before buying such material.

I think our troops are doing an excellent job as peacekeepers, in Bosnia and elsewhere. However, we must ensure that what happened in Haiti does not occur again. We found out that we did not have the necessary equipment to go there. We bought helicopters, but these are not necessarily what is needed in Haiti. This is why we are asking foreign affairs and defence officials to review their policy.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, everyone in this House wants to achieve a balance between our armed forces, their role in the world and the protection of Canada. I am sure that the hon. member for Saint-Jean agrees with me that, today, the role of peacekeepers is no longer what it was 20 years ago, when our troops were in Cyprus, on the Golan Heights, or elsewhere. The situation then was stable.

Today, peacekeepers need to have the capability to fight, otherwise they cannot maintain peace. It is very important that all members of the House realize that. Contrary to what the member for Saint-Jean suggested, our point of view on this issue is not secret; rather, it is very open and transparent. We will submit it to the committee. The committee will be its own master. We will do all that. However, we should all recognize that we are now living in a much more dangerous world and we need new means to protect ourselves and uphold our values abroad.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the minister. We need new means that are suitable for what we wish to do as a country. But what are they? What are the solutions? What exactly are we doing?

When the minister buys Striker vehicles, which are offensive vehicles, are they intended for peacekeeping? No, they are vehicles better suited to accompanying the Americans in Iraq.

And thus the government is sending out mixed messages. We want helicopters; we want this; we want that. I return to my example of peace. We send a contingent to Haiti and we cannot equip them properly. They do not have boots or bullet-proof vests.

There is a problem: we do not know what this government wants, because it does not have a policy. Its policy is completely behind the times; it is 10 years old. Reality has changed. The minister and I agree on that.

However, before any equipment is bought, its use in the next year and in five years must be known, which is not the case at present. Equipment is purchased without a plan, and when specific events happen and we want to help, we realize that we may not have the right equipment for the job.

It is time to turn things upside down—

[An hon. member]

Or right side up.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes, it is time to turn things right side up because they are already upside down.

In order to have a defence and foreign affairs policy, we must first know what we want, what we want to do, and then later, we can equip our soldiers.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to follow up on the hon. member's comments, I do not know whether he is confusing being a pacifist and being a peacemaker. I will give him two examples. One is the situation in Rwanda, when our heroic General Roméo Dallaire watched in absolute horror as 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered. He could not do anything, for many reasons, one of which was lack of personnel and another being the rules of engagement that he could not intervene.

Let us switch to Sierra Leone and a conflict that took place over 15 years, where a quarter of a million people were murdered. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in horrendous ways. They were tortured, raped and maimed and their limbs were chopped off. How was this stopped? The British walked in with 780 troops and started shooting some of the rebels. The result was that the conflict stopped. The people of Sierra Leone have now started to build a peace and are living in relative security. The slaughter of civilians stopped only because 780 British troops went into Sierra Leone and stopped the killing because they used force.

I will ask the member the following simple question. Does he believe that the Canadian military at times will need to use force when diplomacy or other coercive measures have failed, tragically? Are there times when our military will need to use force in order to save innocent civilian lives?

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat to my colleague what I said earlier. We do not live in an angelic world, either. We believe that conflicts ought to be resolved through diplomacy, conciliation and mediation, but, admittedly, that is not enough sometimes, and then the use of force becomes necessary.

Regarding the many examples he has given, I want to remind him that our opinion must be sought on the placement of our forces under foreign command and our loss of control as a result. That is the kind of point that should be covered by the defence policy and the foreign policy.

That is the problem General Dallaire encountered. He was on a UN mission. He notified the UN of what was going on. But the rules of engagement did not allow him to use force.

We need to discuss what type of intervention we are prepared to take to help our allies and friends around the world. We need to know if we agree to have our forces placed under UN command. I remind my hon. colleague that the Canadian Forces are currently under NATO command in Afghanistan. Is that what we want?

What do we do if and when NATO rules of engagement are not consistent with ours? These are all questions that remain unanswered, because we do not have a defence policy or a foreign policy. Every question raised by the hon. member is linked directly to this problem, which just adds validity to what we have been saying all along on this matter.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Saint-Jean for his strong presentation on the need to engage in war only as a last resort, and for his commitment to a peaceful world.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion today. Defence is certainly on the minds of Canadians as a result of the tragedy that occurred on the HMCS Chicoutimi . There seems to be a growing consensus in the country that something has been wrong with government support for the military in the past, although there may not be agreement as yet on how we remedy whatever was wrong, because we may not even agree on what kinds of support we are lacking for our military. Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing consensus. If I might put it in somewhat Churchillian terms: Never have so few been increasingly asked to do so much more with less and less resources. It seems to me that this is the view so many Canadians. Even members on the government side have come to realize that perhaps with the best of intentions, fiscal and otherwise, the men and women of the Canadian armed forces have been put in a position where they are being asked to do the work of Canada abroad, in terms of peacekeeping and peace making and other international efforts, and that they increasingly do not feel they have the resources to do that.

There may be grounds for reallocation of resources within the Department of National Defence. Certainly many would make the argument that DND is top heavy and that a lot of money is spent on senior bureaucrats, both military and civilian. There may be room for reallocation, but I also think, and I think all parties agree on this, we are open to the argument that there actually needs to be more money spent in an absolute sense on our armed forces if they are to do the kinds of things we want them to do.

However, what is it we want them to do? That is where we might disagree with each other as parties. I do not see that as partisanship in a bad sense. We need to have a debate in the country and there will be differing opinions. That is not partisan, that is the nature of democracy. What is partisan in the pejorative sense is when we exaggerate the case or when we continue to use examples that we know are no longer relevant. The case arose earlier on the floor today about the Canadians arriving in Afghanistan with the wrong uniforms, I thought was sufficiently put to rest by the military itself when it appeared before the committee sometime ago. I do not think it actually serves the debate very well to keep bringing those kinds of things up. That is a form of partisanship we could do without.

Sometimes we see parties agreeing with each other. We saw that yesterday. We have had a lot of back and forth between Liberals and Conservatives on the floor here today. One would think they do not agree on anything. It is quite the contrary. Yesterday, in the foreign affairs committee they agreed to combine together to defeat a motion supported by the NDP, and presumably the Bloc, to hold public hearings on the question of whether Canada should participate in the national ballistic missile defence system that George Bush is proposing for the United States and is proposing Canada be a part of that.

Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Somehow there is this great divide between the Liberals and the Conservatives. However, when it comes to the single most important decision that Canada will have to make in the near future with respect to foreign policy and defence, they are one. They are one not only in substance, but they are one in process. They are one in substance because it has been clear from the beginning that the leader of the Conservative Party is in favour of Canadian participation in ballistic missile defence. If he has changed their position, members on the other side are free to get up and tell me that this is no longer the case and that they are now on the fence or something like that. However, they are certainly not against it.

When it comes to process, as I said, yesterday the Liberals and the Conservatives were as one in the committee on foreign affairs in denying members of the Canadian public the opportunity to come before that committee throughout the country and express their opinion on whether Canada should be part of this.

If the government has another view of how Canadians are to be consulted on this it should say so. It agreed to a motion, an amendment to the throne speech, that said this decision would be taken only after a vote in the House of Commons and after all the relevant public information was available. To whom will this be available? How will Canadians have an opportunity to react to that information, presuming that it is adequate and that we do in fact have all the relevant information? Will it be a kind of in-house exercise, as so far the international policy review of the government has been, or will we actually give Canadians a chance to express themselves on this? We have the time. There is no rush. We could do this.

With respect to the Conservative motion itself, it says that Liberal policy is seriously out of date. This is true. The 1994 white paper is obviously out of date. I do not think even the Minister of National Defence would want to rise in this place today and say that it is an adequate description of the world and an adequate description of what Canada's role in that world should be.

It may be that the 1994 white paper was never an adequate description of what the world was like, but that is more for a debate on the historical side. However, it is true that we now live in a completely different world, and some people have already alluded to this. We certainly live in the post September 11, 2001, world. We live with new geopolitical realities, with the United States having emerged as the one global superpower. We live in a unipolar world instead of the bipolar world of the cold war. We live in a world where terrorism is abundant, terrorism of many different kinds, not only the kind that we find in organizations like al-Qaeda. We live in a world of failed states and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

We still do not know the location of all that nuclear material that existed in the former Soviet Union. Where is it all? There are some attempts by Canada and other countries to decommission nuclear facilities and weapons and find out where that stuff is or ensure it does not fall into the wrong hands, but there is all kinds of it all over the world and we do not know where it is. Even though we are back from the nuclear abyss in terms of the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States of America, it could also be true that we live in a much more dangerous world in terms of the possible use of nuclear weapons by all kinds of non-state actors, the names of which we do not even know, as well as their locations.

We also live in a much more dangerous world because we now live in a world of pre-emptive war doctrines, the doctrine adopted by George Bush. I believe it was on September 27, 2002 when he made a speech and said that from here on in the United States would act pre-emptively whenever it had a belief, and it could be the wrong belief, that someone is about to attack the U.S. This changes the whole strategic environment in a way in which the Canadian government has yet to respond. We need to respond to that because we are so involved with the United States in terms of the defence of North America and in terms of its expectations as to what we will do as a neighbour.

Of course we have a changing world in terms of the increasing polarization between rich and poor, not only within countries but between countries as a result of 20 years of globalization, free trade, deregulation and all the other things that have contributed to an increasingly unstable planet in social, environmental and economic factors, not to mention global warming.

Not all things are obviously related to defence, but I just want to set out what I think is the changing world to which we need to respond.

With respect to the Conservative motion, it is rather odd. It sets out, perhaps unintentionally, a dichotomy between peacekeeping and combat operations that I have often heard Conservatives criticize. In other words, it is not uncommon to hear Conservatives and others, and quite legitimately so, point out that peacekeeping is not what it was when we went to Cyprus. Often, it is not like there is a peace to keep. There is a peace to make and to enforce. Peacekeeping has morphed over the years into peacemaking and peace enforcing and often that involves our troops in combat situations.

Therefore, this motion, one could claim, seems to have been drafted without any knowledge, or at least without having that knowledge impact on the drafting of the motion, of situations like the Medak pocket, where Canadian peacekeepers actually had to have combat capability in order to defend themselves and to defend others.

I find it somewhat ironic that we have a motion from the Conservative side of the House which appears to reinforce this dichotomy, because it is important from the point of view of the NDP as well as from the point of view of many, I would assume, that our peacekeepers do have this combat capability, because they are going to need it in the increasingly difficult situations that we send them into.

Peacekeeping is not what it used to be. That means that our forces, when they are sent into these situations, need to have that capability. That has been demonstrated in a concrete way on a number of occasions.

Perhaps that is what the parliamentary secretary meant when he said, although I think it is a quote he probably does not want to distribute, that “peacekeeping is war by another name”. I thought that was an interesting thing for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence to say. Perhaps the Minister of National Defence could elaborate on that at some point as to what his assistant meant.

I see smiles breaking out over there, so perhaps they will want to have some research done on exactly what was meant.

[An hon. member]

Get those BlackBerries working.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to Liberal defence policy, there is much to criticize. Of course the first thing that comes to mind is the absolute scandal of how long it has taken, and the way in which it was dealt with, to replace the Sea King helicopters. I was here in the House when the debate about the EH-101 helicopters took place. I think there were legitimate positions to be taken on either side of that debate, but it also had a political dimension in the negative sense of what it means to be political.

We were critical of that purchase at the time, but I can tell the House, at least from my point of view, that if I had thought, by killing that helicopter contract, that 11 years later Canadian Forces personnel would still be flying around in Sea Kings and there would be 30 hours of maintenance or something like that for every hour in the air, I might have had a different point of view. I had no idea that even Liberals would do that. There is always a long lead time with Liberals. I think it was something like 42 years between the first promise on medicare and when they kept it, but I thought with helicopters they might be able to do better than that.

But here we are 11 years later and we still do not have those replacement helicopters. That is an absolute scandal. I am sure it is the internal politics of the Liberal Party that got in the way, as so many other things have been obstructed by the internal politics of the Liberal Party: who is going to get the contract, which friend of who is going to make the money off this particular thing, and on and on it goes. It is not just when it comes to advertising and sponsorship scandals that internal Liberal Party politics get in the way of things.

However, it is not just the Sea Kings. It is also the way in which the Liberals have treated the armed forces, both the civilian and the military personnel in the armed forces. I think of ASD, alternative service delivery. It sounds really nice. It sounds like something good is happening.

What was happening, of course, was that people who were unionized and being paid decent wages to be the civilian part of the military family on a long term basis were laid off and gotten rid of so that others, or perhaps even the same people, could be hired back on the next day by firms that had the previous service contracted out to them, such that people could come back and do their old jobs for half of what they were being paid before. Probably the person who ran the company the service was contracted out to had some relationship with the military or perhaps was a retired military person or someone like that.

On and on it goes in regard to the way in which ASD was used, allegedly to save money but in a way that showed contempt for the loyalty and the quality of service that had been provided to the Canadian armed forces over the years by their civilian personnel.

Another good example of what has been wrong is what has happened to our reserves, our Canadian reserve army. I have never heard anyone, in 25 years in the House, ever get up and say they were against expanding the reserves. In fact, for 25 years everyone has been for expanding the reserves. There has been no political price to pay by any government for expanding the reserves, yet it has never happened. Why is that? Partly, I think, it is because the regular army itself stands in the way of expanding the reserves.

Our reserves have been allowed to deteriorate. If we go into some of our armouries, we see that it is the only place where we can walk in and feel that time has stood still. I used to go into Minto armouries in the 1960s when I was a cadet and when I belonged to the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. When I go into armouries today, nothing has changed.

There are some things I do not want to change, but there are other things that are not working anymore. I asked some of the people down there about it and I was told, for example, that they cannot use the rifle ranges. What is an armoury without a rifle range? And when they do get a rifle range, they do not have bullets. They have no ammunition. One cannot practise and learn how to use a rifle when someone says, “Here are your two bullets for this month”. It just does not work. It just does not cut it.

This is the kind of indignity that our armed forces have been subjected to under the reign of the Liberal Party, so I am glad to see that in the throne speech there is a commitment to proceed with the third stage of the expansion of the Canadian army reserve. I hope that actually goes ahead.

The other thing I want to comment on again has to do with the Tory motion. I talked about the dichotomy between combat operations or combat capability in peacekeeping, but in the same motion the Tories also seem to set up a dichotomy between the creation of this new peacekeeping brigade that the government has said it wants to create, this increase of 5,000, and combat capabilities. I think it is too soon to judge whether or not what the government has in mind is creating a peacekeeping brigade that does not have combat capabilities. If that is what it is doing, then that brigade is not going to be of much use to the international community.

Ultimately, our vision is of a Canadian armed forces that is a meaningful resource, at the ready, that can get there when it needs to get there, with the equipment it needs, to be a meaningful resource to the United Nations or in other international situations where the Canadian government deems it appropriate, not as an interoperable arm of U.S. foreign and defence policy, which is what the United States wanted us to be when they went into Iraq.

It was good that the Liberal government of that day decided not to go into Iraq, but these ad hoc decisions, even when they are good decisions, are no replacement for an overall foreign policy which integrates the need for a strong Canadian armed forces that gives us respect in the world and makes us a meaningful resource to the international community but is integrated with an appropriate development policy, because ultimately good international development policies are a form of prevention.

The government likes to talk about the right to protect, but there is also an obligation to prevent situations from becoming the kinds of situations where we have to go in and protect people. We can do that by having the kind of development policies we used to have. We could do that by spending more money on development instead of spending less money on development, which is what has happened over the years with the Liberal Party. I have talked about defence, development, and diplomacy. The external affairs department has been cut back and does not have the resources it used to have.

We also need concerted work on disarmament, on getting rid of nuclear weapons, number one. We had an opportunity after the cold war to get rid of nuclear weapons. We have blown that opportunity, but it is never too late to refocus the world on the need to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether and other weapons of mass destruction. That means going after them where they are, not where they are not, in Iraq.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from the opposition asked what I meant by saying that peacekeeping is war by another name. He answered his own question when he said that if we had a brigade that was not combat capable, it was not going to be “of use” to very many people. That is exactly what I mean. If we are going to have effective peacekeeping soldiers, those soldiers must have the capability of waging a war. If they do not have it and do not need it, that is fine, but we must have that capability as a basic and essential means if they are going to do their jobs under the most difficult circumstances. If they are not necessary, then so be it.

I hope, though, that the member will support the following. This government is currently engaged in an integrated approach toward our security needs. It involves development, it involves diplomacy, it involves defence and it involves trade. It is an integrated approach to deal with the very complex array of threats we have today.

We also have a defence review that is going to be released to the defence committee this fall, so I will ask the member a simple question. Will the hon. member support the government's initiatives in the 3Ds plus trade review? Will he support the defence review? Will he support our introduction of and our commitment to increasing the numbers of troops on the sharp edge by 5,000, including an increase of 3,000 to our reserves?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am from Transcona, but I am also from Missouri, and I will support an integrated policy on the part of the Liberals when I see it and when I see it actually being put into action. I do not see much integration there at the moment at all. I see a foreign defence policy that has been dis-integrated and disintegrating for a long time and which has actually over time reduced the perception of Canada in the world as a real player.

I think we have been living off our laurels for a long time in the world. It takes other countries a long time to figure out that Canada is not actually spending what it used to spend on overseas development aid. It is not uncommon if we travel to have people be very complimentary about Canada. I think that is good and I think there is still a lot to be complimentary about in terms of the role that Canadians play in the world as individuals.

But the role that the Canadian government plays in the world has increasingly become smaller and smaller, not just in terms of its capacity to make Canadian troops available where they are needed in certain situations, but in terms of development and diplomacy and its role in terms of disarmament.

I noticed that the parliamentary secretary talked about defence, diplomacy and development. Now I had only been up on my feet a minute or two before and I had also talked about the need for disarmament, nuclear disarmament, but the parliamentary secretary did not mention that. Maybe that was an oversight or maybe it tells us something about where the government is at: that it has actually given up on that.

We have not given up on that, so I say to the parliamentary secretary, when the Liberals come forward with an integrated policy and show that they mean it and that they actually intend to do something about it, instead of just having photo ops with Bono and pretending to be the kind of country we used to be, then maybe they will get some support from us, but not before.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments. I have the utmost respect for my colleague from the New Democratic Party for the ongoing work that he does as the defence critic for his party. I had the opportunity in the last Parliament to work closely with him on the defence committee. I know that these issues of concern for our men and women in uniform are as near and dear to his heart as they are to mine and many of our colleagues.

I just want to agree with his rebuttal to the statement by the parliamentary secretary when he asked whether he, and by extension all of us as parliamentarians, would be supportive of an integrated approach that the government may or may not put forward. I would suggest as well that what we have seen from the government over the past decade is far from an integrated approach to defence, diplomacy or foreign assistance and development. A hodge-podge of knee-jerk reactionary policies has been put forward, rather than any sort of vision on how to address not just the needs of the defence community, but those other needs that he spoke of as well.

We just went through an election campaign and all of us had the opportunity to participate in all-candidate forums in our constituencies. I know that he personally believes in a strong military in Canada. He personally has spoken many times about the need to have, as our motion states, combat capable troops not only to protect the sovereignty of our own nation, but to assist other nations as well. I wonder if he could explain the NDP policy in this regard.

The new Conservative Party of Canada was very clear during the election campaign on what we would commit. We said that we would commit $1.2 billion up front to provide the needed financial assistance to get our military at least to turn the corner. We recognize that is not enough, but we wanted to move toward, as quickly as possible, the NATO average as a percentage of GDP.

There was a lot of confusion in my constituency about exactly where the NDP stood. It never put any numbers down as to what it would commit. One thing the Liberals do is to talk in flowery terms of how they will support our men and women in uniform. However, it is quite another thing when it comes to actually making the commitment in writing of what will be done to accomplish the things the member talked about during his remarks. What specifically is his party prepared to commit in order to ensure that our troops are combat capable? How many dollars will the NDP put on the table?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is missing the point. One of the things we have been calling for, and I think his own party has been calling for, is a full scale policy review on the part of the government, presumably with public input, although it appears that his party is against public input when it comes to national missile defence. In our view anyway, it would be putting the cart before the horse to say how much we think it will cost before we know exactly what it is we will do.

We are engaged in an internal review ourselves as a party. We think the country should be engaged in a similar review. If the Conservative Party knows already what it wants to spend without having engaged in that kind of review, then good for it. However, we feel that this is the kind of thing that can only be arrived at when we have a much more specific notion of what it is the government is proposing to do and therefore what we might propose as an alternative.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think, with all due respect, my hon. colleague from the NDP missed the point. That is why the new Conservative Party has been very explicit in what it is proposing. I know our defence critic, who is about to speak in the debate, will elaborate even further on that.

We are prepared to make those types of commitments to the Canadian people before a defence review, which of course we support. We know that there has not been a defence review since 1994. A decade has passed. The events of September 11, those tragic events that are all too familiar and which are seared into our memories have happened since that review, so a defence review is needed.

I said repeatedly when I was the defence critic that we cannot allow the government to use the need for a defence review as an excuse to do nothing further. The men and women of our military, of our armed forces deserve better. They deserve to know from their elected politicians what we are willing to commit to.

I ask the question again: What is the NDP willing to commit in dollar terms, in real dollars, to help the men and women in our military to turn the corner and to provide them with the tools they need to do the job?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to take note of the fact that the main political thing here is we are not against an increase in defence spending, if it is money spent on the kind of vision, so to speak, that I laid out in part in my speech. I laid it out only in part because I did not have the time to deliver the entire vision.

What is significant is we are saying that we are part of the consensus that something has been underfunded, that something needs to be addressed in terms of the Canadian armed forces. I have no illusions, and people in my political universe should not have any illusions about this. If we were to create the kind of Canadian armed forces that the NDP wants and put them at the service of the goals that the NDP has in mind, this would not necessarily be cheap. This could actually be very expensive.

What I am trying to do is transcend the old debate between this party wanting to spend less, and that party wanting to spend more. I am trying to get beyond that debate, which has kind of an obvious partisan dimension to it, in which we both appeal to our traditional constituencies. I want to get beyond that debate and ask what it is that we want our Canadian armed forces to do.

It may well be that even though the hon. member and I have a different view of things, both views will require more money if they are going to be done properly.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, until the end of the cold war, the two military blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, established a stable international order through their overwhelming military strength and influence with client states around the world. With the fall of communism, international stability quickly evaporated. The long suppressed underlying tensions unfortunately resulted in failed states, ethnic cleansing and terrorism which continues unabated today.

In 1994, the last time the government took a serious look at defence policy, it did not anticipate the threat focus shifting so much so rapidly. The force structure flowing from this flawed policy and the desire to secure a peace dividend resulted in armed forces that are not properly structured, equipped or manned to meet the challenges of today or the challenges in the future. On the contrary, our military capabilities are in a state of ever increasing decay. The forces simply cannot meet the range and size of the tasks assigned them.

To do what the Canadian Forces are currently being asked to do requires a steady state of funding of somewhere between $18 billion and $19 billion a year. The government is currently spending $13.5 billion, or about $5 billion less per year.

For the last 10 years the government has knowingly underfunded the military, preferring to reap the so-called peace dividend in a world that is less peaceful. This benign neglect has consequences which we are living with today.

During the last election campaign the government complained that our party was putting too much emphasis on the military. At that time we committed to restoring the credibility of the armed forces by significantly increasing funding and restoring personnel levels to where they were about 10 years ago.

Our plan included investing in new equipment, ensuring that the current equipment was properly maintained and military personnel had the necessary individual and collective training needed to maintain combat capabilities. This reality is well explained by Liberal Senate defence committee chair Colin Kenny, who stated the following on September 8:

--the Liberals won the recent election with a defence platform that almost seemed pacifist when compared with what the losing Conservatives offered up. Paul Martin's people took a shrewd, calculated risk that most Canadian voters would not see the country's military decline as a priority issue.

Having depicted us as war-like, the Liberal government tossed out the suggestion that it was going to establish a new 5,000 person peacekeeping brigade. This would somehow solve the myriad of defence problems and permit us to play effectively on the world stage.

Although the armed forces desperately need more manpower, the Liberal government's suggestion of creating a peacekeeping brigade is flawed. When we dispatch troops to offshore deployments involving failed states, ethnic cleansing and terrorism, they must be prepared to conduct combat operations to enforce peace and to protect themselves from attack.

Classic peacekeeping was possible during the days of the two large military blocs because they were able to suppress much of the tensions in the client states. This type of action can only occur where there are two sides that can control their forces and they are willing to work toward a political settlement.

Given the conditions in the world today, this type of operation is becoming more and more rare. The majority of offshore deployments involve peace restoration. When our military is involved in peace restoration or stability operations, they must be prepared to threaten the combatants with the use of force, and if hostilities continue, they must be prepared to use force. A soldier standing by with a blue beret and a rifle encouraging people just to talk and resolve their problems will not restore stability.

The proper way to prepare members of our military for their tasks is to train, equip and support them for the most difficult role, which is combat. With very little adjustment they can do lesser roles like peacekeeping. To use a civilian analogy, a security guard can protect a building, but he cannot participate in a police SWAT team. On the other hand, a SWAT team member can guard a building.

As well as believing that the concept of a peacekeeping brigade is a flawed idea, I also believe that the government should not be creating new military formations when the remainder of the forces are underequipped, undertrained and undermanned.

The 5,000 personnel and the money needed for their equipment, some $2 billion, should be used to restore current combat capabilities. To use an analogy, it is like someone spending money on a cottage while his house is crumbling and his car is broken down

The real challenge for the military is not that it lacks a peacekeeping brigade, but that the Liberal Party has starved it of funds over the last decade. It is hard pressed to fulfill any of its current roles because it does not have enough personnel, it is not properly equipped, nor is there adequate logistic and infrastructure support.

The Canadian Forces have an authorized strength of 60,000. It is estimated that it is currently paying about 62,000 military salaries. Because of severe problems in the recruiting and training system, it only has an effective strength of about 52,000. This means that 20% of military manpower is not available for employment. That is an extraordinary amount.

The reserves, which play an important part in meeting our commitments, have for years been promised by the government that they will be expanded and properly equipped. Altogether they number about 20,000 which is inadequate for what they have been asked to do and their numbers have been essentially the same for years.

Overall, the Canadian Forces are too small to meet current defence policy. An example is our over-tasked army. The effective field strength of the army is about 13,500 although some will argue that it is more like 12,500. It is hard pressed to meet its national and international commitments. Each time the government commits a battle group of 1,000 soldiers to some stability operation, the army must identify three additional battle groups to support the commitment.

Once the six month rotations are in training, one battle group is in theatre, one is returned home undergoing rest, retraining and reassignment, a third battle group is conducting collective training and briefings in anticipation of future deployment, and a fourth battle group is assembled to carry on the sequence. If anything less than four battle groups are involved, the soldiers rotate out of country too often and this affects their home life and their desire to stay in the military.

In a field force that can establish at most nine battle groups, one commitment of a battle group involves four. The field army is simply too small to meet the current tempo of offshore deployments and that is why we are pulling back from many of our previous commitments.

As with the navy and the air force, the army manpower has to be substantially increased so that it can meet domestic and foreign tasks. Overall the regular force needs to be restored to the 75,000 to 80,000 range while the reserves have to be expanded to the 40,000 to 45,000 range.

Because of the tempo of operations and the lack of adequate funding, much of the collective training within the armed forces is not being conducted. Most of the training effort and funds are committed to ensuring that individuals achieve their required skills. As a result, group or collective training has suffered.

The military, to be effective, does not act as individuals, but acts as a collective in organizations like naval task groups, air squadrons, and army battle groups and brigades. If this neglected elective training continues the Canadian Forces will slowly lose its ability to conduct meaningful military operations.

Currently, somewhere around 12% to 13% of departmental funding is committed to equipment upgrading and replacement. This is far too low a contribution to achieve the equipment requirements on the long term plan of the department which needs an investment greater than 20%. This means that over time more equipment will have to be abandoned resulting in a much less capable military that will be under increasing strain.

Ironically, the Prime Minister recently bragged about his announcements on defence equipment acquisitions. However, according to the DND strategic capability investment plan, the Prime Minister's announcements fall short by some $20 billion according to the 15 year plan. It is incredible that the Prime Minister can tell Canadians he has fixed the crisis in defence when he has failed to approve the full $27.5 billion plan required for military equipment.

To be clear, the Prime Minister has only approved $7 billion or 25% of what the military needs to meet the policy requirements. By contrast, the Australian cabinet last year approved its military's 10 year, $50 billion equipment plan based on its 2000 white paper and its 2003 defence policy review. Australia recognizes that it needs an effective military. With one of the biggest economies in the world among G-8 nations, should Canada do less?

The lack of investment in new equipment means that much of the current equipment in service in the Canadian Forces is nearing the end of its useful life and beyond. This means that extraordinary maintenance and servicing has to be carried out to keep it operating. This ever increasing demand for funds diverts money from the capital program. The military is caught in the law of diminishing returns. More and more effort is being committed to maintain this shrinking armed forces.

A prime example is the air force, which in 1994 had approximately 700 aircraft with an availability rate of 85%. In other words, at least 580 aircraft could theoretically fly on any one day. Currently, the air force has about 300 aircraft with an availability of 55%, or 165 aircraft available for flight. The air force currently has less than 30% of the capability that it had 10 years ago.

Another example of equipment underfunding is the navy's 12 maritime coastal defence vessels which were originally sold by the government as a means of dealing with mines placed by an opponent near our harbours. Unfortunately, not enough money was assigned to the project and the vessels do not have this capability.

The lack of modern, reliable air and sea transport handicaps Canadian Forces deployments and national policy independence in an era when operations are conducted in far off places. Rapid transport assets are a critical factor for both deployment and sustainment of forces. A few years ago the Canadian Forces took six weeks to deploy 900 soldiers and light equipment to Afghanistan. This is far too long a period.

Support for the Canadian Forces requires that sufficient spare parts, transport, medical personnel and supplies, and knowledgeable technicians are able to service every piece of equipment. Without adequate support even the best combat soldiers cannot perform as required. Unfortunately, all of these categories of support are critically short and the problem increases with each operational deployment due to personnel attrition and aging equipment.

As with equipment, military infrastructure is in a serious deteriorating state. The department typically plans that buildings and structures will last 50 years. As a result, the department must invest about 2% of replacement value per year to keep infrastructure in overall serviceable condition. This standard has not been met for a very long time and therefore the department is facing a bow wave of infrastructure replacement and servicing demands.

Married quarters are a prime example. There are thousands across the country. The great bulk of them are 50 years old or more and need refurbishment and replacement, yet the government does not seem to know whether it should keep them and invest or abandon them. Meanwhile, they continue to deteriorate.

The restoration of Canada's military capabilities will not be without challenges. We believe that the branches of the armed forces should individually and collectively retain or acquire those capabilities that are relevant to current and anticipated missions. We reject the concept of mission roles for the military, like peacekeeping because it is unworkable in practice given the range of demands governments will always place on our forces.

Any attempt to reduce the military to a constabulary force is inconsistent with the demands of the new security environment. A force configured for light policing and humanitarian relief work would be unable to cope with armed groups threatening the stability of a state, to say nothing of terrorist organizations or dictators bent on territorial aggrandizement.

Finally, we ask the government to provide our forces with clear policy direction in the future. As well, it must provide the funding necessary to ensure that the manpower, equipment and support is there to ensure that our military is combat capable to take on the range of tasks that a great nation like ours must do.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the opposition critic for defence. I look forward to working with him in the coming years on defence issues to give our armed forces the tools they need.

Our biggest problem with the motion, quite frankly, is not the body of the motion but the preamble. We cannot agree with the preamble. The truth of the matter is that we are doing a great deal to support our military, including the integrated review we have right now on defence, diplomacy, development and trade. They are critically important if we are going to deal with the very complex issues of security that we have today. We know they have changed since 1994. That is why this is taking place.

Second, we have the defence review that is taking place in the department. It will be released to the committee that the hon. member sits on. We look forward to his expert testimony as to how we could make that review better so it will serve our men and women in uniform.

We are increasing our regular forces by 5,000. He knows the restrictions that we have right now. Perhaps he could provide the House with some constructive solutions as to how we could rapidly get the 5,000 troops that we need into the sharp edge of the military. What would he do to enable them? The bottleneck is that we can only get so many people into the system at a certain time. How would he propose we do that? In what time period does he think we could most rapidly do that, and how would he accomplish that goal?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is not my responsibility to structure the Canadian armed forces. I did that in the past as a military officer, but it is not my responsibility now. It is the government's responsibility. The government and its military advisers will have to work out how they can effectively train and employ 5,000 additional service people, which should not be a great problem.

The hon. member has certainly changed his position in the last 10 months. In an article from his local newspaper he complained that government cuts were hurting the military rank and file. He complained about rent increases, post-living differentials going down, new equipment that was years away from coming on line, all kinds of antiquated equipment that needed repair, threatened cuts to the military by the type of review that is going on right now. I do not know what happened in the last 10 months, but you seem to have adopted an opposite position.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I would remind all hon. members to use the riding names when we have these discussions.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to announce what the government has done in the last 10 months. It made a commitment of $7 billion to address the exact problems I mentioned in the articles I wrote some time ago. The money will go into four very important equipment acquisitions. Those acquisitions, as the member knows, will involve search and rescue aircraft, helicopters, a mobile gun system and four new supply ships.

That is a very important new contribution to the equipment of our armed forces. Can we do more? Yes. Are we going to do more? Yes. On top of that we are going to increase our troops at the sharp edge by 5,000 and we will increase our reserves by 3,000. That is all good news. It is a good start to improve the capabilities of our armed forces. I look forward to increasing and improving upon that performance in the coming years.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca said that the government had committed to increasing the capital program by $7 billion, but at the moment what we have in practical terms are statements.

For example, in the case of the naval logistic vessels that we, by the way, referred to in our campaign are going into a study period now. There is going to be a study of a few years and it will be years and years before we ever see these vessels. I do not know how long the search and rescue project, which was also recently announced, will take.

In many of these cases the government announces the projects so that it can say it has announced them, but whether it actually implements and concludes them is another matter. If we are going to maintain the kind of armed forces we have today, we will have to substantially increase the capital program because it is anemic right now. The military only has about one-quarter to one-third of what is needed to achieve the force structure that is needed to do its roles.

Yes, the government has made some contribution, but I would not exaggerate the importance of that contribution. It is not significant against the whole demand.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will follow up on the inane comments by the parliamentary secretary, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, who stood and bragged about what his new-found party, the Liberal Party of Canada, has supposedly done for the military.

He quoted the Prime Minister and the ex-minister of defence who was defeated in the last election campaign. They went out east and made some grand announcements last spring and talked about all of the equipment they were going to provide our military some years in the future. Our defence critic touched on it just now.

It is easy for a government to project spending way off into the future on some hardware. It is much harder for it to commit the dollars today in this year's budget or last year's budget to meet the operational needs of our men and women in the military.

The hon. parliamentary secretary knows it. He used to speak vehemently and passionately about this when he was on this side of the House, but how quickly he has forgotten that. It angers me to no end when I hear this type of nonsense being perpetrated by the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

The men and women in our military know better. They knew it when the budget came out and they were short $600 million in the three services this past spring for their operational needs. Then the Prime Minister had the gall to stand up and talk about building some ship years into the future. That is going to be little solace to the needs of our men and women of today. He should know better.

I would ask my hon. colleague to enlighten the House and the general viewing public a bit more about the hypocrisy of the government.