Mr. Speaker, the additional costs of this wrong mission in Afghanistan are continuing to escalate. The latest in the ballooning costs is $157 million to send tanks to Afghanistan and now $17 million for six howitzer artillery pieces. The cost for the artillery pieces alone is the equivalent of the taxes paid by 5,000 Canadians.
Why does the government keep pouring the hard-earned money of the taxpayers into a mission that even the Minister of National Defence has said cannot be won militarily?