Mr. Speaker, as this is my maiden speech in this Parliament, I first want to thank very much the people in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca for giving me the honour of representing them again. It is a profound honour to be in the House. Very few Canadians have that chance and I am profoundly grateful for those who have given me the chance to do this once again.
In my riding is the Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt. Both the civilian and regular force personnel who work there and their families are a significant part of my riding. Again, particularly in this post, I commit to them to work hard for them, to fight for them and to get them the things they need so they can continue to perform the extraordinary duties for our country at home and abroad. I give them an enormous thanks and gratitude for what they have done, are doing and continue to do for our nation. We are in deep gratitude to all of them.
Let me begin by talking about the motion from the official opposition. The body of the motion is something where there will not be much disagreement. It talks about the government committing to maintaining air, land and sea combat capabilities and ensuring that the members of the forces are trained and equipped to their job. We have been trying to meet that goal and we are fighting hard to do so. The government has made a significant contribution, particularly in the last nine months, to that effect. In fact we want to go much further than that. Our objective is not simply to maintain those capabilities, but expand upon them, and I will get to the reasons why.
What we disagree with profoundly though is the preamble to the motion which states:
––the government is continuing this trend by proposing to raise a peacekeeping brigade at the expense of existing combat ready forces...
I unequivocally deny and do not accept that whatsoever. The opposition members know full well that this is completely untrue.
I want to talk about the fact that the government is strongly in support of the Canadian Forces. I listened very carefully to the allegations of the Conservative Party. I will go through the various commitments it made if it were to become the government.
First, the Conservatives would invest an immediate $1.2 billion per year in the military. What has the government done? We have put in $1.6 billion in the 2004 budget. On the issue of personnel, the opposition would increase those numbers to 80,000. The cost of that alone would be $1.6 billion. The personnel increases, for which the opposition has called, would more than swallow up the exact amount of financial commitment it would put in to the military. The numbers simply do not add up.
Furthermore, the opposition in the last election said that it wanted $54 billion in extra spending, plus $41 billion in tax cuts. The only way to do that is to go into a deficit. We see that south of the border in the U.S. It has a $470 billion deficit. We want to give as much to our military as we can, but the opposition knows full well that we can only do that if we have a balanced budget. It cannot be done with a deficit budget because it would eviscerate our ability to provide not only for our military, but for health care and other priorities of Canadians.
As we go down the list of the opposition party, of the 11 things that it wants to do, 10 of those things we have either done, are in the works or we are doing better. I will simply give a few examples.
With respect to the issue of the air force, the CF-18 fleet upgrade is being done right now. With respect to the older C-130 transport aircraft, 10 new aircraft are coming on board and they will retire our older Hercules. With respect to the Sea King replacements, the opposition knows full well that commitment has already been made. We also have three new support ships coming on board.
The opposition party talks about having a stronger independent Canadian Coast Guard. The government has put together two new operation centres, one on the west coast on Vancouver Island and one on the east coast. They will integrate not only the Canadian Forces, but also the coast guard and the RCMP. We will have a combined multilateral approach to threats that come toward our borders. That is very exciting.
The opposition should know full well that not only have we accomplished a lot of its recommendations, we have gone beyond them and we have done it with a balanced budget. Our primary object, which we have always had, is to have a combat-ready, capable force to deal with threats. Let me list a few of the things we have been doing.
We are committed to putting 5,000 people on the sharp edge of our military, plus 3,000 reserves. As well, $7 billion has been committed to mobile guns, three new supply ships, new search and rescue planes and helicopters. Is that enough? It is a pretty good start. Are we going to build on that? Absolutely. Those are our commitments to the House and most important to the men and women in our armed forces. Those are the people to whom this speech is directed. We will do our best to give them the manpower, the training and the equipment to do the jobs they have been tasked to do.
It is worth reminding the hon. members that the Canadian Forces are already using equipment that is on the leading edge of technology.
Some of those examples are the Coyote armoured reconnaissance vehicle and our new leading edge surveillance technology. I was privileged to go to the meeting held here today. Our military received four awards out of seven submissions. One of those was for an extraordinary surveillance and communications tool that they developed for our arctic, which can be applied to saving lives, not only in Canada but also abroad. That is a contribution to not only our security but to the security of our partners, and internationally. It will go a long way in many areas, including search and rescue. Also, the army's armoured personnel carrier, the LAV III, is a very advanced system and we will build on that too.
I can assure my hon. colleagues that the government is committed to expanding our commitments to the armed forces, not only in personnel but in training and equipment. Why is all this important? Because members from all side of the House have said very clearly that the type of threats we face have expanded and changed. They are not the same threats as we have had before, and 9/11 showed that very clearly.
What is exciting is we have taken the initiative to do something that few countries are doing, and that is to integrate our defence capabilities, our diplomacy, our trade and our development. We all know those four tools will used and needed to address the asymmetric threats. We have extraordinary capabilities in all those areas and we are committed to accomplishing that.
Furthermore, the public ought to know, and I will repeat this, that a defence review is taking place. It will be released this fall. Public input will be required. More important, input from the House will be required, so we have the best review possible. Our objective is to have the best minds, the best ideas and the best defence review we can possibly have for our country and for the men and women in our armed forces. They are extraordinary individuals. We owe it to them to give them our best as they give their best for our country.
I have been privileged to see their work. In Sierra Leone they are there training a new army for peace and security. They saved lives in Bosnia conflict. Our snipers received awards from the American government for their work in Afghanistan. It shows that our armed forces personnel are some of the best in the world. While the threats out there are defused, and we saw it in the U.S. 9/11 commission report, as partners and as individual countries we have to do a great deal more in terms of addressing these threats.
It is a new world. There are new threats and new challenges, and the government is committed to addressing those challenges for all Canadians and for the world.