Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to get up again to speak on defence issues. Hopefully, the parliamentary secretary will be able to address the issues that I raise.
I am coming back on a question that I raised on March 9. In that question, I talked about whether the Liberals are going to cook the books in the budget with National Defence. It is a bit of a shell game, moving Coast Guard expenses as part of the defence budget so that we might get closer to that 2% aspirational target set by NATO. As we know, the Coast Guard does not do any actual National Defence work. It is strictly there in search and rescue mode and to some degree does border security.
As well, I come back to this issue of danger pay that was taken away from our troops who were on the ground in Kuwait in the fight against ISIS. As members know, on March 9 we did have our opposition day in the House, and ultimately the government supported my motion to retroactively restore danger pay to all members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are involved in Operation Impact, whether they are in Kuwait, stationed in Iraq, or stationed in other locations throughout the Middle East supporting the efforts on the ground and in the air to defeat ISIS.
The questions have come back to the government. When will the troops who had their danger pay taken away at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait have their danger pay restored? When will they have all that back pay, which goes up to about $1,800 a month in increased salaries, in income tax treatment, and other benefits that accrue to them? When is that actually going to be paid back to them?
I want the government also to commit to make sure that those benefits are not taken away from other operations in Kuwait and Iraq. As we know, from the questions on the Order Paper that we raised, there has been an ongoing assessment of the danger and hardship risks that are associated with being deployed, but we also always have to remember that this is a bigger mission, taking on ISIS. It takes members of all the Canadian Armed Forces to be on the ground and in that space dealing with ISIS terrorists.
As we know, those terrorists are very mobile. Right now they are fleeing Mosul, and as those rats scurry away, they are going to places like Kuwait. They are getting out of Iraq. They are going to Syria and other surrounding regions, including back down to Baghdad, which really does put all of our troops at risk.
We have to remember that it is not just about those members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are in harm's way. This about supporting their families at home. I hope that the parliamentary secretary can assure those families that all of our troops, whether part of the Air Task Force at Kuwait, part of our Special Operations Forces, or part of a medical mission in Iraq, are going to have all of the dollars and cents that they deserve, that every penny will be paid back, and that those people who are going to be deployed and are currently deployed will not have those benefits clawed back.
Finally, I ask this of the government and parliamentary secretary. Will the Minister of National Defence correct the record of his misleading comments that he has said in this House more than a few times now? They are completely contrary to the questions on the Order Paper that he answered in Question No. 600, when he said that all of our troops, since they were deployed in Iraq and Kuwait, have all their benefits until September 1, 2016.