Mr. Chair, we are also seeing the Canadian Armed Forces right now in a period when we have the largest recapitalization needs we have ever had in the history of the Canadian Forces.
In particular, I, of course, am concerned as a member who represents a naval riding with the national shipbuilding strategy, which was approved by all parties in the House and which is really going to be the mechanism by which we renew the navy. My concern is that we have had deferrals, or reprofilings, and putting things off into the future, all kinds of terms have been used, first, again, started by the Conservatives and then followed up by the Liberals so that we now have about $3 billion deferred by the Conservatives, then another $3 billion deferred by the Liberals, and now another $8 billion deferred off to the future.
When we are talking about buying equipment, with the rate of inflation in the military of 3% to 4% to 5%, and we are putting off things 10 years down the road, how are we actually going to buy the same amount of equipment we were supposed to buy with this money? We are obviously going to get 40% to 50% less, at minimum, of the same kinds of equipment, the same kinds of ships that we were going to get with the original allocation. Where is the funding to sustain things like the national shipbuilding strategy?