Mr. Speaker, it seems to be working, because the Prime Minister looks quite red today.
The Minister of National Defence should know that the cold war is over. He firmly believes that we must send more tanks to Afghanistan. He forgets that the Afghan guerillas had a field day against Soviet Union tanks, in the eighties. There is a budget of $650 million for tanks, which says something about our new way of dealing with conflicts in the future. Afghanistan takes a lot of flack. Through this measure, the general is contributing to the escalation of the Afghan conflict, instead of working to contain it.
Instead of grandstanding at the expense of taxpayers, will the Minister of National Defence recognize that his decision to send these tanks is a strategic mistake and it only gets Canada more bogged down into this mission—