Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Oxford.
I would like to begin by congratulating the member for Carleton—Mississippi Mills for the motion that he has brought forward on behalf of the Conservative Party of Canada. On this supply day our party has picked the topic of debate and put forward a motion that will be voted on.
It is important to recognize in the House that we have somebody, out of the 308 members of Parliament, who has the expertise that is needed to bring meaningful debate and actual facts to the House of Commons on the state of our military. I welcome that member for his contribution not only to our party but to the debate in this country on the state of our military.
I would like to go back to September 11 a couple of years ago. I believe it was a wake-up call that went around the world. From that day on, the world changed. I also believe on that day that people in the military around the world, whether it was the Department of National Defence in Canada, the minister, or the chief of staff suddenly realized that we as a nation have cut our military to the point where we may not be able to defend ourselves against that kind of action.
This is not a traditional war or confrontation situation. This is terrorism. These people do not attack in normal ways. We must be able to defend the citizens of our country. First and foremost, the duty of a government is the safety and protection of its citizens. I believe on that day the alarm bells started to go off, particularly in Canada, to say that all of the cuts to the military over the last number of years have put us in a position where we fear that we cannot protect our citizens.
This motion today is a great opportunity for all members to rise and talk about what we would like to see done. That is where I would like to focus my comments.
Some of the parties in the House of Commons do not support the military to the degree that we would like to see it supported. I do not think anybody does to the degree that my party would. We want to see our regular forces increased; we want to see our reserves increased. We want to see a substantial increase in the funding that would go toward capital replacement.
I have had two occasions to be involved with the military on visits in North America. On one occasion I went to Norad headquarters in Colorado Springs and actually went inside Cheyenne Mountain where the operations took place on September 11. A Canadian was in command.
I also had an opportunity to go from air force base Trenton to Alert Bay on a Hercules resupply mission. It was a three day trip. It took a couple of days to go up and a day and a half to come back. It was an experience that I will never forget. The resupply mission that goes there on a weekly basis, particularly in the wintertime, is the only connection the people on that base have with the rest of the world.
Our men and women in uniform were on a Hercules cargo plane that I was able to get on that had over twice the flying hours recommended for that air frame. It had been re-winged and new motors were installed, but the plane had 40,000 hours that was only supposed to be on duty for 20,000. People are expected to get into those planes every week to take those supplies into that air force base. That is not the only situation. The people on those bases depend entirely on this aging fleet of airplanes to bring in their goods and supplies.
I know full well that the crew on that airplane, from the two loadies in the back up to the pilot, the captain, the navigator and the engineer, were excellent, qualified people. They knew that equipment. Nobody moved until the engineer said that plane was safe. Thank goodness for him.
I learned a few things about how the military operates. I will never forget that crew and how dedicated they were. They did not complain. They knew I was a member of Parliament and they knew they had an opportunity to say some things. They were very open with me but not once did they say they regretted joining the military. They enjoyed that life. However they were disappointed to some degree with the respect they were receiving from some quarters but they did that job week after week and were proud of the job they did.
When we looked at the throne speech it was shocking to see the support the government expected to give to the military. There were three critical words in the speech: the military needs to be smart, strategic and focused. I agree with all those things but it bothers and worries me that they might just be code words for just more of the same, that we do not need to re-invest, that we need to somehow re-conform the military into a smaller, less capable command.
I think we need to keep those words in mind as we go through this next year and the next budget process. It will be our job as the official opposition to hold the government's feet to the fire and ensure that it properly funds the military to the degree that Canadians are expecting. More and more Canadians realize that it is our military personnel who will have to protect us from terrorism.
We just have to think back to yesterday when Ambassador Cellucci from the U.S. indicated that Canada could be, not has been, a launching pad for terrorism to anywhere in North America, including Canada. We have to be very aware of that.
One of the issues that keeps coming up is the funding. Let us get to some facts. The Prime Minister indicated that his defence equipment acquisition is what the military is asking for and that the Liberal government will take care of it. The actual fact is that it has only approved $7 billion, which is only one-quarter of the military's own 15 year request of $27.5 billion. This is based on the 1994 policy and recent operations.
We can compare that to Australia, a country smaller than our own, that has spent $50 billion on equipment replacement over a 10 year period. It just goes to show where we are positioned in the world regarding our military capabilities.
The chairman of the defence committee mentioned decay. What we are indicating is that it continues to decay, not that it has decayed to nothing but that it is in a decline in terms of its capability and equipment.
As our critic mentioned earlier, every time there is a deployment and our equipment is moved around the world or within Canada, it gets more worn out, more run down and more in need of replacement. We are not keeping up to that need.
We can look at the money needed for capital replacement and infrastructure repair. When I was on the air force base at Trenton it looked to me like it had been a magnificent place at one time but that it needed some serious upgrading. They were only simple things. The lawns were in disrepair, the parking lots needed repair and the buildings needed painting.
When I went into the operational buildings there was the look and feel of them being rundown. It was not because of the men and women in our armed forces who work there every day. It was because they did not have the capability, because of budget cuts, to do what was needed.
We also need to look at the numbers. If we are going to do a proper job of defending Canada against terrorism, we need the numbers. Right now our recruitment process is so bunged up it does not work properly. We have people who are lining up to be in the military but they cannot because the system is not capable of doing that.
Those are a number of the areas we need to address before we can properly stand in any forum, whether it is the House of Commons or anywhere, and say that we are doing our utmost to keep Canadians safe.