Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary provided a number of reasons for the proposed procurement. I will pick a couple that sort of took me aback.
One was the possible use in Afghanistan. I thought we were leaving Afghanistan in 2011 and going into a training mission.
Another is that the price is right and the continuation of that. However, it started at $50 million, then he said $70 million to $75 million, but the defence minister said it could go as high as $100 million per aircraft. He certainly did.
The member also said that, by the way, we are going to be out of deficit by 2016 so it is okay that we spend this money. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says quite the opposite. In fact, there is an $11 billion difference in the projections; there will still be as high as an $11 billion deficit in 2016.
Why is the parliamentary secretary throwing out all kinds of unsupported statements hoping that one will stick? Why does he not just tell the truth?