Mr. Chair, my colleague spoke in detail about how important it is for us to become part of the plans for the future of defending North America. Over the last x number of years we have seen the steady decline of government support for our armed forces which has weakening the forces. How often have we heard it said across the country “Thank God the Americans are there to protect us”?
I ask him, how long should we go on expecting others to defend us? I congratulate the government on the initiative of looking at being part of this suggested procedure because is it not time that we played our part in ensuring that our country is well defended? If not, somewhere along the line we will pay a very heavy price for our negligence.