Mr. Speaker, actually I have not seen the poll. I have not even heard about the poll, but it must have been at least 8,000 or 10,000 people in total, and that is a huge poll. This will accurately reflect what Canadians really believe. I am not surprised by that.
It may sound like we are blowing our own horn, but what parliamentarians have said again and again over the past five years in particular, is that the need to have a combat capable military is sinking in with the general public. They are thinking about it and they have come to understand what the government will not acknowledge. The government understands it. I do not believe for a minute that the government does not understand what is necessary, but it is simply not willing to make the tough decision when it comes to how taxpayer money should be spent. It is just unwilling to make those tough decisions and that is the saddest commentary. As a result, it says the peacekeepers are good enough.
As the member said, we absolutely owe our serving men and women, at the minimum, the capability to defend themselves under any imaginable circumstance that may come upon them. The one thing that is predictable about going into an extremely unsettled situation is unpredictability. Let us give them all we reasonably can to defend themselves and to be safe in whatever situation.
God willing, when they go into a situation that they think is a peacekeeping situation, whatever that means, that it will be that, but too often in the past it has not. It has been a combat situation. Combat is necessary to stabilize the situation, and so many times that provides for people of that area, that country, some stability they have not seen for an awful long time, a chance to move ahead and a chance to become a free and democratic nation. Let us give them that and let us give that to the countries we are out to help as well.