Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary made the same mistake the Minister of National Defence did by saying that they had dealt with this issue in the past and that in February, the minister had to stop a reassessment for troops that were deployed to Kuwait. However, in fact, I had a question on the Order Paper, Question No. 600, that I asked back on November 16. The response from the minster was that all our troops in Operation Impact, whether in Kuwait or anywhere else in the Middle East, received all of their tax benefits, $1,500 to $1,800 a month, and it is signed by the Minister of National Defence. It was tabled in the House by the parliamentary secretary himself. I have the signature. I wonder why he never read it to know that all of our troops had their benefits for the entire time they were in Kuwait, up until September 1.
Even if what the minister is saying is true, that he had to intervene back in February 2016 to ensure that all troops received their hardship pay and benefits and tax relief, why did he not do it in September 2016? There is the rub. There is hypocrisy here in what the minister says he did in February that he refused to do back in September 2016.