Madam Speaker, it took a lot of hard work to repair the damage the previous Liberal government did under the decade of darkness. Defence spending stagnated at $10 billion per year during the decade of darkness. When we took office, we took it from $14 billion a year to over $20 billion a year. Unfortunately here we are today still talking about a $20 billion expenditure for the Canadian Armed Forces.
Under departmental programs, it looks like a big number, but other partners in the NATO alliance are spending much more than that on a percentage of GDP. The NATO goal is that every nation should spend somewhere around 2%. It is an aspirational goal of 2% of GDP. This year we are sitting at 0.9% of GDP being spent on national defence. That unfortunately is not enough for what we need to do to protect our brave men and women and to protect our sovereignty.