Mr. Speaker, I will be rising a few times today because I can speak to this issue with some authority.
I know my NDP colleague and her party care about people as individuals but, at the risk of sounding unkind, I would point out that if they had cared in the past about people in the military like they care about them now they would not have obstructed military spending as much as they have historically.
However, I do strongly support a couple of items in this motion, one being the VIP spousal benefits, because, frankly, anybody who gold digs for a military pension does not understand mathematics.
Somebody mentioned that more research resources were available to the government than to the opposition to come up with figures to cost out some of the programs that we are talking about, and there was some disbelief at the figures that my hon. Conservative colleague mentioned. However, I would point out that those resources are the same for the opposition as they are for us, and it is called the Library of Parliament. Why would they not go get accurate numbers? Is it because the answer is inconvenient?