Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence should just stop pretending that his budget cuts are not contributing to the tragedy of suicides in the military. In fact, there have been at least 175 suicides among serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces during the 12 years of the Afghanistan mission; 158 soldiers were killed in combat during the same period. The death of a military member for any reason is a tragedy.
Can the minister confirm that more military personnel have died from suicide than from the combat mission in Afghanistan and commit to doing something to prevent these tragedies?