Mr. Speaker, after a while one has to wonder how many times one has to repeat oneself.
The minister was in the committee of the whole about a month ago. He answered 130 questions over the course of four hours. No matter how many times he said that this $3.7 billion was reprofiled for future use in order to try and match the procurement cycle and the fiscal cycle, no matter how many times he said the same thing, the Conservatives insisted on calling it a cut. It speaks to why the Conservatives still do not get the difference between postponing money and cutting money.
This is not a cut. This was asked for by the Minister of National Defence, because the projects that the Conservatives left behind were not ready for the spending. Apparently, the view of the Conservative Party is that we should spend the money before we actually have the project ready on which to spend the money.
The hon. member mentioned a number of projects.
Yesterday, I was in Halifax to see the Arctic/offshore patrol ships, and they are cutting steel. The midsection of one of the ships is well on its way. However, one does not write a cheque to the contractor before the terms of the contract have been fulfilled.
On the future fighter aircraft requirements, the previous minister of defence said in a Senate hearing yesterday, or last week, that actually they did not get the job done. The F-35, which was the Conservatives' choice, lacked capabilities and the costing was not right, and so they backed off and lost five years.
When we do not spend $109 million, it is because the project is not ready to have money spent on it. I do not know what could be simpler. Do we go around spending money on projects that are not ready? Is that the position of the hon. member?
On the Maritime helicopter project, same thing. We have received eight, and two have been sent back because we have to upgrade the systems. What does the member want us to do, go and spend money, and give the money to the contractor for not doing the job? Is that the process that the hon. member wishes us to engage in?
Maybe, just maybe, we should try and work at matching the fiscal cycles and the procurement cycles. Maybe if the previous Conservative government had not left behind such a mess, we would not have had to reprofile this $3.7 billion.
On the frigate modernization, the frigates are almost done; however, we are not going to write a cheque until they are done.
I still do not understand the hon. member's position: spend money before the project is complete and in effect give the contractor a bonus. This is crazy financing, but for the last 10 years, that has kind of been the way business was done around here.