Mr. Chair, I would like to commend my colleague from the Yukon for a well thought out speech. I want to take exception though to a remark he made right at the start of his speech.
I think he left the impression with those viewing the debate at home this evening that somehow the Prime Minister, when he was finance minister and the Liberal government had to make the cuts to the military that I was referring to in my remarks. I think he said something along the lines that the cuts were necessary if we were going to balance the budget and then start running surpluses to pay down the debt, to make the commitments that all Canadians want to see to health care and education and those types of programs.
While we too are committed to this, when I was sitting listening to him, I was reminded of something that I have often said to my children. I have three children, two girls and a boy, who are the ripe old ages of 25, 23 and my son is 21. Ever since they were toddlers I tried to impress upon them that life is all about choices. Each one of us makes choices when we get out of bed in the morning. When we get out of bed we can choose to get up with a smile and face the day with a smile on our faces or we can choose to get up and be grumpy, and probably the day will be a reflection of the mood that we are in.
We all make choices. I would submit that the government and the Prime Minister when he was finance minister made some choices. They chose to spend, and the number is now upwards of $2 billion, on a gun registry, to register duck hunters' firearms. The Liberals chose to spend a lot of money whether it was on sponsorship programs or HRDC boondoggles.
Over the last 10 years that I have been here and that the government has been in power, I would submit it has made some bad choices. I would hope that the hon. member recognizes that as well. I would hope that we are not going to see some of those bad choices when we see the budget, for example, in a week or two. I hope that we will see the government committed to putting the money back into not only our military but into supporting missions like the one we have now undertaken to Haiti, so that we can do the job that all Canadians want us to do.