Peter MacKay

[Department of National Defence, May 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. We are talking about money at the Department of National Defence that was not spent, that went back to the overall budget. It is not missing money like in the sponsorship scandal. It is money that actually was not spent.

As I said yesterday, this was never a problem during the hon. member's government because under his government the Department of National Defence was starved of resources. The men and women in uniform had to beg and borrow. That is what happened under a Liberal government. We are funding the Canadian Forces fully.

[National Defence, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, let me make it very clear. I hope the hon. member will put his earpiece in and listen.

There is no plan to relocate helicopters from the base in Bagotville. This is an attempt by the Bloc, constantly, to create a crisis that causes fear for the men and women who are on the bases. We have the leader of the Bloc taking part in his usual Chicken Little approach, creating a crisis and a fear and then pretending that he is solving the problem. That is what the Bloc does. It creates problems and fear but does nothing.

[National Defence, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I repeat that no decision has been made on the location of the existing fleet and the aircraft that will be purchased in future.

There is no decision and no plan to move the helicopters from the Bagotville base. This is fiction. It is an attempt by the Bloc to scare Canadian Forces personnel and their families.

[National Defence, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member read the report. I have done the same.

I said we will be looking at these important recommendations. Acting as we always do across government when these recommendations from the Auditor General arrive, we of course immediately turn our attention to addressing these concerns.

With respect to Bagotville, with respect to the issues related to the helicopters, these are recommendations. These are not things we have acted upon as yet. These are recommendations that happen across government, in every department, before they even reach the desk of the minister. Very often they are late. That is what has happened in this instance. There have been no decisions made concerning relocation of equipment.

[National Defence, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member kindly for his question. In fact, I did meet with the Auditor General yesterday. There are issues that we have to deal with in terms of accounting, and I thank her. We will have an opportunity to look through all the recommendations, as we always do.

However, I will tell the House what is a nice problem to have in the Department of National Defence these days, something that never happened during that member's time in government: We have enough money now, with the Canada first defence strategy, to purchase the necessary equipment, to support the men and women in uniform who are doing important work. That never happened during a decade of darkness when he was in government.

[Infrastructure, May 11th, 2009]

You are nothing.

[National Defence, May 11th, 2009]

I repeat, no decision has been made about the location of existing fleets or the aircraft to be purchased in the future.

[National Defence, May 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question.

My answer is yes, it is not true.

[Communications Security Establishment Canada, May 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, what the Bloc member is saying is completely wrong. It is incorrect to say that we need a Canadian silo to protect Canadian information.

It is always necessary to be able to develop partnerships with the private sector.

We will always protect Canadian information. What is not intelligent is to get up and throw aspersions on a file that the member knows really nothing about.

[Communications Security Establishment Canada, May 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member would know, the Government of Canada is constantly looking for ways to partner in some instances, to respect taxpayers' money first and foremost when we make major infrastructure investments.

Whether it is telecommunications, whether it is issues related to procurement, the Government of Canada is committed, of course, to being responsible with taxpayers' money, not being a one issue party, but looking at the best interests for the whole country. Whether it is industrial regional benefits, whether it is Canadian content, we will put taxpayers' interests in the mix when we are making these decisions.