Mr. Speaker, the hon. member directed most of his comments to veterans, but I know he has a long career and interest in defence spending. I wonder if he cares to comment.
We hear a great deal from Conservative members that there was something called the “decade of darkness”, but the actual figures do not show that light has dawned. This budget, at pages 322 and 323, says that defence spending in the National Defence budget would start increasing, but that increase would start in 2017.
I wonder if the hon. member is concerned that the Department of National Defence is over-stretched, with missions in Iraq, Syria, and now Ukraine, and has fallen below the per capita, and in fact, the percentage of GDP spending on defence compared to any of our industrial country allies.