Mr. Speaker, I have listened to this debate with great interest and I noted the question to the hon. member about when a country is at war. I have found the debate thus far on this topic and the whole discussion incredibly myopic.
The last I noticed, and nobody has pointed out to me otherwise, since I have been elected I have not been able to vote to go to war. From my understanding, the government has announced, without any vote, that we will no longer be engaged in the war in Afghanistan. In fact, it probably will be over sometime next year, if we stick to the current policy.
If we will not be at war any more, there is an obvious question. In this time of profound economic decline and major recession in this country, and based on a poll that just came out where 71% of Canadians said that the money could be better spent on acting on climate change, not on waging war, surely this money could be better spent to support our armed forces because we are moving into the Arctic. Why not invest in a major way in search and rescue and surveillance?