Mr. Chair, I thank the minister for the information.
Information that was previously provided to me by the minister stated that the added cost of deploying the Leopard tanks will be $157 million. It is a fairly large sum of money, considering that his government made cuts to women's programs, to literacy and to the court challenges program.
When we compare this $157 million with the $1.5 million that the Department of Foreign Affairs is going to spend this year on civilian activities as part of the provincial reconstruction team, how much did it cost to send each tank?
I also asked through a written question to the minister, and I asked him in committee, and my office has even used the access to information system to try to find out the cost of a particular item of departmental spending. How much did Canada pay last November for each Excalibur round to be used with the M777?
The government spent $5.5 million for these shells. That is about the same amount of money that was spent on the court challenges program, in fact a little bit more than that, before it was cut.
The minister promised me at the defence committee that he would find out this information, so I am wondering if he could share that with us now. What is the exact cost of each one of those shells?