Mr. Speaker, in 2003 the Liberals forced the army to retire its self-propelled armour-protected artillery guns. Now in 2005 the minister is trying to sole source similar but unarmoured guns for our troops in Afghanistan. This is just another example of poor planning. The Liberals failed to properly arm our troops prior to committing them to a combat mission.
Why is the government acquiring guns that have no armour protection? Why is it avoiding fair and open competition?