Mr. Speaker, if anything demonstrates the culture of entitlement that has poisoned Ottawa and the reason the government has lost the moral right to govern, it has to be the government's record on military procurement in general, more specifically helicopter procurement. The fateful decision 12 years ago by the then finance minister and now the leader of the Liberal Party to politicize the purchase of the search and rescue helicopters is the scandal that will not go away.
I completely reject any comments from the Liberal Party that I am pursuing the culpability of the federal government over the deaths of helicopter pilots for partisan reasons. If my efforts to hold the Prime Minister accountable for the partisan political decision to cancel the purchase of search and rescue helicopters save the life of one brave pilot, I will consider my efforts a success. If anyone is playing partisan politics with the well-being of our soldiers, it has to be the Prime Minister.
I compliment the men and women who maintain the equipment in the Canadian Forces. It is a tribute to their skills that there has been as little loss of life as there has been over the years.
We owe it to the men and women we ask to put their lives on the line for Canadians to provide them with the best equipment.
Four years before the tragic accident that cost the lives of Captain Colin Sonoski and Captain Juli-Ann Mackenzie, the Auditor General warned the Liberals that military budget cuts were compromising the safety of Canadian troops.
In his report, the Auditor General stated the following, “The ultimate goal of defence procurement is...to build defence capability”. Vehicles that cannot do the job do not represent good value for money. He stated:
The Griffon Helicopter best illustrates the implications of not enough money and inadequate analysis.
Operational tests that could have been carried out on the Griffon to assess the aircraft's suitability for military use were not done before acquisition. As a result, the Department is now discovering that the aircraft's capabilities are being stretched to their limits, particularly when the Griffon is used in applications that push its envelope, such as search and rescue operations.
That quote from the report of the Auditor General was provided to the Liberals four years before the tragic accident that claimed the lives of two Canadian soldiers, yet this Prime Minister chose to do nothing.
Just so Canadians who are watching these proceedings understand the context of this debate, even some Liberal MPs are disgusted by the way the Prime Minister plays politics with military procurement. At the public accounts committee, which reviewed the Griffon helicopter purchase, a now retired Liberal MP had this to say:
Quite frankly, I am getting a little tired of sitting here listening to all the equivocation...I am fascinated by the fact that someone admitted here today exactly what I said at the last meeting. It was a civilian helicopter which you painted brown....
In response, the department indirectly stated that budget cutbacks by the Liberal government forced the defence department to purchase what it could afford, to which the same member that I just quoted then said, “You have compromised”.
The compromise of the Prime Minister when he bragged to Canadians about the deficit had a human cost that Canadians are now just beginning to realize. Canadians now know that a safety compromise became necessary because the right helicopter was the one cancelled by the Prime Minister.
Compromises in equipment cost lives. We can just ask the families of the soldiers where there was a compromise in equipment. The audit department went on to state for the record in committee that, surprise, surprise, “The problems...experienced with the Griffon were unexpected...Apparently there is something in our operational profile or climatic conditions that created problems”.
While the Minister of Defence chose to respond to my question in a manner that ignored my reference to the Auditor General, the additional decision by the government to ignore the question of what is acceptable risk should have been considered in his response to me and to the men and women who are currently serving in Canada's armed forces.
It is relevant to quote Major-General Natynczyk. I asked him at defence committee what is “acceptable risk” for the Griffon helicopter pilots. His response to me was that while the goal is an acceptable level of safety, the Canadian Forces airworthiness program cannot foresee or prevent hazards to military aviation.
This is acceptable risk to the government, a government that has lost the moral right to govern. The time has come to restore accountability to the affairs of our nation.