Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a pleasure to stand in the House and speak on behalf of the people of Miramichi—Grand Lake.
The Prime Minister fancies himself as an economist. He has the degrees. He has spent years telling Canadians that he understands how money works. Since being elected, many Canadians actually think he is a travel blogger, apparently. He loves the way bubbles from champagne tickle his nose, and he has a very refined palate for caviar and fine foods, but as he is a man who apparently understands money, I have a simple question for him: Has he ever read Milton Friedman?
Friedman had a straightforward way of explaining why governments so often waste money. He said there are four ways to spend it. First, if we spend our own money on ourselves, we care equally about the price and the quality. Second, if we spend our own money on someone else, we care about the price but not so much about the quality. Third, if we spend someone else's money on ourselves, we care about the quality but not so much about the price. Fourth, if we spend someone else's money on someone else, we do not care much about the price and do not care much about the quality. That last one is the government. When it comes to defence procurement in this country, that is exactly what we have been watching with the Liberal government.
Canada is known for a lot of things, like hockey, maple syrup and politeness that sometimes goes too far. We are not known for the success of our bureaucratic defence procurement. If we asked any contractor who has ever tried to get a job done on time and on budget, we would learn pretty quickly that the more layers of people we have spending other people's money, the more things go wrong.
In this country, Liberals have spent 11 years proving that point. Fighter jets are still not settled, helicopters have become a national punchline and submarines do not exist. Even the Snowbirds were flying aircraft older than most of the people watching them, and they are now grounded until sometime in 2030.
This is not news; this is the Liberal record. Now the Liberals want to fix it by creating another agency and another minister, with broader powers to sole-source contracts and skip competitions. They want to take the most inefficient way to spend money and give it a new name and a bigger chequebook.
Division 16 of the bill would hand that unnamed minister the authority to sole-source almost anything that can be tied to national defence or national security. The list of exceptions is long. It includes urgent operational requirements; supporting a sector of the economy; sensitive technology; research and innovation; agreements with other governments, probably the countries where our Prime Minister also holds citizenship; and a catch-all that lets regulations add still more reasons. Once these powers are in place, the competition can be skipped and the supplier can be excluded on security grounds without a full explanation or a real appeal.
The bill would also remove the ordinary consequences if a competition that should have been run is not run. At the same time, it would allow the government to buy shares in corporations and replace directors and officers. This is not a minor technical change. This is power to take control of a company when it suits the government of the day. It sounds like socialism to me. There would be no serious requirement to report back to the House on how the powers are used, no clear obligation to tell Parliament when a national security exception is invoked and no meaningful check on loans, advance payments, guarantees or grants.
I am sure the Prime Minister's friends over at Brookfield Asset Management are grinning like the butcher's dog. I can just imagine the world of opportunities that the bill would open for those who are fortunate enough to be in business with the Prime Minister.
There is an old line attributed to Churchill: “Gentlemen, we have run out of money. Now we have to think.” Under the Liberal government, we ran out of taxpayers' money a long time ago, but the difference is that the government is still not thinking. It is just adding more people to spend other people's money on other people and calling it a success.
The Defence Investment Agency has already been operating for over a year. It has held signing ceremonies. It has announced preferred partners. It has not delivered a single piece of equipment to the Canadian Armed Forces. When its own CEO reportedly considered stepping down because the bureaucracy was still too slow, that should have been the end of the argument. We do not fix bureaucracy by giving it a new letterhead and a larger budget.
In my experience as a construction worker and a contractor, in my line of work, if a job keeps going over budget and past deadline, we do not solve it by hiring more project managers who have never swung a hammer. We put on our work boots, roll up our sleeves, figure out what is broken and fix it. We lead by example.
The Canadian Armed Forces do not need another layer of bureaucracy deciding what they get, when they get it and what the company affiliated with Brookfield gets in the contract. Our men and women in the military need equipment on time and at a price that makes sense, with someone who can be held accountable when it does not happen. This bill would not do that. It would build a department around a problem and make it official.
There was a famous line spoken by an American sailor at Pearl Harbor, spoken by our allies, I might add. Aboard the USS New Orleans, a man said, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” The line was celebrated throughout World War II and soldiers sang songs about it, because it rang true. In 2026, under the Liberal government, our soldiers now have neither of the two things that success in battle requires.
I asked a question in the House yesterday about the forced closure of St. Luke's Chapel at CFB Gagetown. Canadians and veterans' groups have been told that there is no room for the Lord or for prayer in our military. Now the Liberals are keeping the ammunition from them as well. If the Liberal government keeps going, we are going to have to train our military on fighting with rocks and sticks. I can only speak for myself, but let me tell the House that I am ashamed of sitting in the House while we treat the brave men and women who serve this nation and put themselves in harm's way with such disrespect.
Conservatives have been clear about what we support: one point of accountability for defence procurement and a special secretariat in the Privy Council Office so that military contracts are treated as the priority they are, not another agency, not another minister with a new title and not a CEO paid more than the Prime Minister with no background in national defence who is secretly shuffling contracts to Liberal insiders. Conservatives will fight to get the sailors, soldiers and aviators of the Canadian Armed Forces the equipment they need, with efficiency and accountability and consistent with the interests of Canadian security, not Liberal insider advantage.
This bill fails the test. It would expand control. It would reduce transparency. It would treat the Canadian Armed Forces as a problem to be managed by another bureaucracy rather than a force to be properly equipped and deserving of the respect and thanks of a grateful nation.
The first duty of any government is defence of the realm. That duty is not fulfilled by creating more agencies; it is fulfilled by equipping the people who stand on the wall. That duty would not be fulfilled by this bill, so Conservatives will not support it. We will stand with the men and women who have to use this equipment, not the system that keeps failing to deliver it to them.