Madam Speaker, if the member opposite had listened carefully to what I said earlier, he would have heard that today's numbers are different from earlier figures because NATO rules changed in 2017. NATO allowed Canada to include the Coast Guard, veterans' pensions and the Department of National Defence's IT expenses in the defence budgets. Some $7 billion was been allocated to this spending, which suddenly, magically, ended up being factored into the GDP target.
The Liberals came in and said they were doing more than the Conservatives. I understand how. They took a bunch of expenses that were already being incurred and included them in the calculation. That helped boost the figures. What did they do in 2023? They cut a billion dollars from the budget, even though the President of the Treasury Board said that the government would not normally touch National Defence. They made cuts. Some $7 billion was added, and it has been going down ever since. They are talking nonsense.