Madam Speaker, the one thing the member for Winnipeg North never talks about is the creative accounting that the Liberals did to get the 2%. They added these in, which have never been added in before, until 2017, and then they added in the big numbers last year: veterans pensions; the Canadian Coast Guard's entire budget, even though it is not a defensive organization nor does it have the ability to be a defensive organization; and Transport Canada airplanes.
The pay raise the Liberals gave was long overdue, yet today there are still forces members who have not received the benefits or the bonuses for staying on as members, especially for those who serve in the Canadian reserves. The army reserves have not had those benefits yet at all.
The Liberals can sit here and talk the game, but we know that, even with the increases in salaries, they have clawed them back by increasing rents on our troops. They have increased the living differentials, especially for the people who are now deployed overseas in Latvia. Their take-home pay has dropped since the so-called raise, because the Liberals are clawing it back through other deductions.
If we had used the same math when we were government, our spending would have been well over 1.5%.