Mr. Chair, it is indeed an honour to be here to discuss the main estimates of the Department of National Defence.
First, it is great to have everyone here for the debate tonight. I think all of us in Parliament want to express our gratitude to the brave men and women in uniform who serve us day in and day out on numerous operations, ensuring that all of us in Canada are safe. That is something we all too often take for granted. We all have that same belief and camaraderie, just different ideas about how we should go about it.
Since the new government has come to power, it is amazing what has happened in the short period of time when it comes to defence.
First, we saw the signals in the throne speech, following what was in the Liberal Party platform, and now in the main estimates. They show significant reductions in spending on national defence. In the budget, we saw a $3.7 billion cut on expenditures for capital projects. That is delaying a number of different main acquisitions that are so necessary for the safety of our brave men and women in uniform. There was also a $300 million reduction in the overall main estimates of the Department of National Defence.
I want to make a brief opening comment, then I will go straight into questions.
David Perry had an interesting quote after the budget came down. He said, “This budget reminds me of that episode of Oprah where everybody in the audience got a car....Everyone got a car here except the Department of Defence”. David Perry is a senior analyst with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
I fear this is just the beginning of what could be another era of darkness that we saw under the Liberals during the decade of darkness. Just to drive home that fact, and although it was General Rick Hillier at the time that coined the phrase “the decade of darkness”, the PBO report in 2015 said:
The most significant budget cuts under program review occurred from 1995 to 2004...The cumulative defence expenditure over that period of time was roughly $13.4 billion below what our modelling showed was required to maintain the existing force structure.
That was recorded just last fall, in 2015. Again, this is a clear indication that what we are seeing now we went through before. The Liberals know how to reduce defence expenditures. In the budget we saw increases in spending in all departments except defence, which is something I think all of us are very concerned about. That happened in 1994. It was the last time we had a defence policy review, and 1995 was when we started seeing the cuts.
I want to get to some of the specific cuts. It was reported in the Ottawa Citizen on April 20 that based upon the budget reductions of $3.7 billion, that would push spending on new equipment back to 2021 or later. We know for a fact Arctic offshore patrol vessels are $173 million and that is being withheld. The project is already under way. Future fighter aircraft, the CF-18 replacements, are $109 million. That is being withheld. The Cyclone maritime helicopter is $90 million. That is being withheld. These are the replacements for our Sea Kings. We are taking possession of these helicopters. They are supposed to be out there doing the service. The Halifax class modernization and frigate life extension is $71 million. That is being withheld. The integrated soldier system project, at $39.4 million, is withheld.
That is just the tip of the iceberg. It is not even $500 million in cuts. Where is the other $3.2 billion coming from? That is my question for the minister to start.