Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister, particularly for laying out in as candid a way as possible the state of the Canadian military, which has suffered greatly over the last number of years. I would be interested in his commentary as to the decline over the last 10 years with respect to the previous government.
When the Conservatives became government, the military's budget was $18.7 billion or 1.19% of GDP. When they left office in 2015, the military's budget was $19.2 billion, a slight increase of half a billion dollars over the entire 10 years encompassed there, with a GDP of just a hair's breadth over 1%. When the member described the state of the Canadian miliary and applied an inflation factor to the actual decline in the budget, we get a situation as described in his speech.
It would be interesting to hear the minister's comments on how he intends to rectify this state of affairs that he sadly inherited from the previous government.