Mr. Chair, I want to take this opportunity to thank the men and women of our Armed Forces, a sentiment I know is shared by all sides in the House, for the incredible work that they do. I was pleased to join with almost everybody here to vote for a motion to increase our defence spending up to 2% of our gross domestic product.
We have made progress since 2015. In 2015, we were at about 1%. We are now at 1.37%, and with the additions in the budget this year, we are going to move up to 1.5%. We still have more to do, but we know, based on the threats in the world today, we need to invest in our Armed Forces.
I am so pleased that we are also creating economic benefits and good middle-class jobs here in Canada from coast to coast through substantial investments in equipping our military.
Let me talk about the national shipbuilding strategy. Over the last 10 years, we have invested $21.07 billion in NSS contracts to businesses across the country. Of these, approximately $1 billion went to small businesses of less than 250 employees, and this has created approximately 18,000 jobs being created or maintained in Canada, not to mention all of the spin-off jobs that are created from companies that do business with C-SPAN, Irving and Davie.
We have awarded thus far $6.52 billion to Irving; $5.26 billion to Vancouver Shipyards, which is C-SPAN; and $2.26 billion to Davie. Other shipyards have received $7.03 billion. We are also providing the most advanced military jets, the 88 fighter jets that are being ordered. At this point the contract is being negotiated with Lockheed Martin. They are the biggest investment we have made in the Air Force in a generation. We launched a transparent competition in order to procure those jets starting in December 2017.