Mr. Chair, I agree with the hon. member in that I do not think that at this hour of the night we want to get into a debate about too much detail, largely because we do not have all the figures in front of us. I think it would be unfortunate if the hon. member left the impression with the House or with the public that the $1.3 billion additional in the estimates, not $1.8 billion but $1.3 billion, is all about building ships and other matters. It is not. It is about increased salaries for our troops and increased health costs, and there is a considerable amount of that money which will go to this Afghan mission.
The way in which the budgets work, and I think the hon. member should know that, is that when we deploy our troops abroad we always have to come back to the government for the incremental costs of that mission. The Afghan mission will probably cost, to keep 1,000 troops certainly, when we are 1,000 troops abroad, plus the 350, a possible $600 million or more in order to accomplish that. That will all be achieved by supplementary estimates because that will be the incremental costs of the department.
It is not realistic to suggest that it is just $500 million of new money to the department this year. There is a great deal more than that. There is a great deal more than that to make sure that the troops are able to do the job that they are doing in Afghanistan as well in other jobs across Canada. That is the importance of the supplementary estimates. That is why I think it is legitimate for us in the House to consider why we should sit until we can get those supplementary estimates passed for the good of our troops but also for the success of our mission and what we intend to ask our troops to do.