Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her compassionate speech. Unfortunately, that is not the topic being debated today.
Members of the government, the team across the way, keep attacking the former government by saying that it did nothing for the Canadian Forces for 10 years. I would remind my colleagues about the C-17 Globemasters, the C-130 Hercules and the Cyclone helicopters that are being built, and the LAV 6 given to infantry troops. Is that nothing? I could go on. We are being accused of doing nothing, but we contributed arms. This government is currently cutting $12 billion from the procurement budget.
Let us come back to the issue of the minister. The purpose of this day is to talk about the problems with the Minister of National Defence. Earlier, my colleague talked about being honest. When has the minister been honest through all he is accused of having done in the past year and a half? When the CF-18s were being withdrawn, he said that the Iraqis said nothing about it, but that is not true. What is honest about making up the capability gap? What is so honest about calling himself the architect of Operation Medusa? Why did he do that?