House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2000, with 41% of the vote.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Madam Chairman, one thing in the estimates that really disappointed me is that there is no increase in spending for the air cadet, army cadet and navy league programs. Each one of those programs is still fixed at $250,000. They are simply wonderful programs in our community.
Can the minister comment on the rationale behind that? Perhaps he could give us some assurance that in the budgets to come he might consider adding money to those very valuable programs.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Madam Chairman, apparently another area of significant increased spending by defence is on information technology security. I notice, for example, that the government is going to spend more money on infrastructure protection and Canada public key infrastructure. A lot of people watching will not realize that public key has to do with the most sophisticated new cryptology that is available worldwide.
Would the minister perhaps give us a general observation on the way he thinks Canada is going now on communications security?
Supply May 7th, 2002
On a somewhat more delicate topic, Madam Chairman, I notice under the heading of large major capital projects there is one listed called the submarine capability life extension project. Would the minister care to comment on what that is all about?
Supply May 7th, 2002
On another theme entirely, Madam Chairman, we heard some talk earlier about Canada's battle tank. I noticed that in the estimates there seems to be a significant increase in planned spending on short range anti-armour weapons. Does this represent a fundamental change in defence policy?
Supply May 7th, 2002
Madam Chairman, one of the reasons for my question about the natural disasters and the amount of money that is allocated there is I am afraid the amount of money that is allocated for OCIPEP is not enough to advance the program really rapidly. Does the minister have flexibility within his budget to transfer the money that may be unspent on a natural disaster to something like OCIPEP?
Supply May 7th, 2002
Madam Chairman, I would like to ask the minister to elaborate a little bit on the first responder situation. We had firefighters who did a lobbying tour here just a week ago in which they complained that firefighters in their community were not being property instructed or given the opportunity to acquire the equipment for response in the event of a chemical or biological terrorist attack.
Who is actually responsible for managing that program? Is it the office of critical infrastructure protection and emergency preparedness or Emergency Preparedness Canada? Does the minister see that program being developed all across the country?
Supply May 7th, 2002
In that context, Madam Chairman, we have increased spending by about $6 million on the contributions to provinces and municipalities under the Emergency Preparedness Act. Could the minister explain why that increase and whether there has been some change of policy in that particular area?
Supply May 7th, 2002
Madam Chairman, one thing I could not quite understand is that there is an expenditure anticipated of $200 million on contributions to the provinces for assistance related to national disasters. That is $50 million less than the preceding year.
I am not quite sure how that money is allocated. Is that money that is budgeted in the event of emergencies? If the emergencies do not occur, does that go into general spending? Perhaps the minister could explain how that money is allocated and used.
Supply May 7th, 2002
Madam Chairman, speaking for this side of the House I want to say how delighted I am to have this opportunity to ask questions on the estimates. This is an important step for parliamentary responsibility. We can see that there has been a tremendous turnout of Liberals on this side of the House to participate in asking these questions.
I propose to ask my questions on the estimates. I do not think this was ever intended to be a general debate on defence policy and so I will confine myself to that type of question.
There is one question I have wanted to ask for a very long time because of the questions in question period and that is with respect to the Challenger. Is it not true that the type of aircraft that the Challenger is is very suitable for conveying units like joint task force 2 to any theatre of operations in the world and that indeed most major military nations, most nations with a sophisticated military, have executive jets like that in their military establishments?
Supply May 7th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite has accurately described the problem. What is the solution? How can we improve relations between Canadians and Americans?
I think the Americans are rejecting their friends and Canadians are their friends. I think there is a big problem.