Madam Speaker, those members cast aspersions. They raise the Prime Minister's name. What did the Prime Minister do when he came into office? He referred this matter to the public accounts committee.
The first thing he did was ask the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to consider this information in order to fully understand what had happened. He gave the committee access to all the departmental documents so it could identify the problems and shortcomings of the current system and determine what the minister and deputy minister had been responsible for, in order to ensure those mistakes are not repeated.
He hired a special counsel and said, “Retrieve the money. Go back, find out if there was money that was illegally paid out, money for which there was no valid work done and retrieve it”. There are now $41 million worth of lawsuits. He appointed the Gomery commission. He cancelled the program. He testified, as did the former prime minister. He was the first prime minister to do that since Sir John A. Macdonald.
If the Prime Minister had any responsibility in it, I could not believe that he would put those things in place. It would be beyond belief that he would put those things in place. He put those things in place because he wants to get to the truth.
He supplied 12 million pages of documentation to the Gomery commission. Investments of $60 million to $70 million, some say $72 million, have been made for the Gomery commission's work. There are forensic auditors, accountants and lawyers. There are teams of experts who are going through the documentation. They will see through the fog of the testimony. People, some under criminal charges, are contradicting one another in their testimony. The Gomery commission will see through that fog and will give us an answer.
My constituents are telling me, “Let us wait for that. We do not want an election now. There are no problems now. The program does not exist. It was fixed four years ago. No one in the current government is being questioned, so let us go forward”.
What do they want to go forward on? The Atlantic accord is one element. Some members of the opposition will suggest that we should move the Atlantic accord aside and vote only on that. I support the Atlantic accord, but I also support ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. I also support parents and children and the child care proposals.
I also support the military and the defence investments. At the base in Greenwood, $50 million in capital works is going on now. It is a strategic base. Much of that investment is of economic importance to the country and to my community, of military strategic importance. We have investment in the military on many sides. One is a linking with foreign policy, a foreign policy review, a military review, making sure that we are doing what we should be doing.
We are making sure that the military has the equipment. We have the new Cormorant helicopters doing search and rescue. Another procurement process is going on for search and rescue fixed wing aircraft. Much of the other equipment is being replaced and modernized.
There is training for the military that will be needed for the future, that will support our foreign policy, our partnerships with the United States, with NATO, with NORAD, and all the others. We have to make sure that we do that properly.
Another thing we recognize is that we need to recruit in the military. That is very difficult in this context, so we look at what the impediments are. One of them I assume is that after 20 or 25 years, when people leave the military in the prime of their lives, they may not necessarily have the right training for the workplace. They may be suffering from some illness or from disabilities that make them not as employable. What did the government do? It came out with the veterans charter. I do thank all parties for having supported that, and the other house for having moved it so quickly. The veterans charter takes care of our fighting men and women, our service people, after they leave the military. It was a responsible thing that we did.
I remember fighting the election a year ago and my opponent, a good man, was quoting from the policy manual saying that what we needed in the military was an aircraft carrier on each coast. The military never asked for that. It was not tied to any of our policies. This is what I was hearing in seven or eight debates. Then there was a correction that it was not an aircraft carrier, it was for helicopters. A 12-year-old boy corrected him, telling him that helicopters were aircraft.
In my riding they also want money for child care.
I only have a minute left and there is so much more to say. There are many aspirations: the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, money for seniors, defence, child care, so many aspirations in the community that it is important for us to get the budget through.
With the additional work we did with the NDP, the most important thing to me is helping students with their tuition costs, reducing their debt load, making sure that students go to the schools and take the courses of their choice, not based on what they can afford but based on their capacities, their dreams and their aspirations. That will continue to build a great country.
I hope all members of all parties will support the budget.