Pierre Paul-Hus

[National Defence, June 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the government is inventing a crisis that does not exist in order to acquire Super Hornet fighters. The only ones who are talking about a capability gap are the minister and the parliamentary secretary.

I would like to remind members that on April 14, in committee, General Hood said, “We have enough trained personnel; we have enough aircraft and enough maintenance people...and we have the money...to operate.”

By saying that there is a capability gap, is the government suggesting that the Royal Canadian Air Force is lying?

[National Defence, June 7th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the capability gap was created in collaboration with lobbyists.

Since February, Boeing had 10 meetings with senior political staff. More than half of those meetings were with the senior policy adviser to the Minister of National Defence and the Prime Minister. That many meetings with the same group smells fishy to me.

The government claimed to want to be open and transparent, but did it rig the process to replace our CF-18s to help Boeing jump the queue?

[National Defence, June 7th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the only gap here is on the government benches. The government seems to be suffering from an imaginary problem. Among their many gaps, the Liberals have a capability gap.

On April 14, General Hood, Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, said that the CF-18s' useful life had been extended to 2025.

Can the minister confirm that this is a ploy to allow the Liberals to keep an election promise?

[National Defence, June 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the current fleet of CF-18s has been refurbished to last until 2025, which is enough time to transition to the next fighter jet. The urgency the Liberals are describing seems to have been invented specifically to give the Prime Minister an excuse not to purchase the F-35.

If the government goes ahead with this decision, is the minister aware of the risk of legal action and the negative repercussions this will have on the Canadian businesses that manufacture the F-35?

[National Defence, June 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, senior officials have confirmed that the Liberal government has already decided to purchase F-18 Super Hornets. Before making the announcement, the Liberals just have to finalize the narrative to justify this purchase. Although they promised to hold an open, transparent competition, the result has already been decided: another broken Liberal promise.

Can the government confirm that it plans to purchase the F-18 Super Hornet? What expert advice is it basing this decision on?

[D-Day, June 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, June 6, 1944, D-Day, was a pivotal day in human history, known as the longest day.

That day, nearly 150,000 American, British, French, and Canadian soldiers stormed the Atlantic Wall in Normandy to free Europe from Nazi oppression.

Over 14,000 Canadian heroes from all over the country took part in the Normandy landing, and 355 of them gave their lives. That was the first day of an extremely arduous campaign that would take nearly three months to complete. The road to Caen was opened through the efforts of Canadian soldiers and, from there, France and western Europe were liberated.

As a former commanding officer of the Régiment de la Chaudière, the only French-Canadian unit to participate in the landing at Juno Beach, I am particularly honoured to commemorate this historic day.

Let us remember all of those who gave their lives in battle to protect our freedom, and let us be forever grateful to these heroes as we say, “never again”.

[National Defence, June 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, first it was U.S. Army officers, now it is the commander of the Canadian special operations forces who is confirming that our troops are on the front lines near Mosul. Brigadier General Rouleau says that the troops spend 20% of their time on the front lines. The Prime Minister kept telling Canadians that this was just a training mission for Iraqi troops.

Can the minister confirm what percentage of our deployed soldiers are currently in combat on the front lines?

[National Defence, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, by withdrawing our CF-18s in order to keep an election promise, the Liberals are putting our soldiers' lives at risk, even more so now that we are on the front line of the offensive in Fallujah. Officers with the U.S. Army have confirmed that our special forces are on the front line. There is no doubt that our troops will face enemy fire.

Can the minister tell us how we went from a training mission to a combat mission and whether our troops are risking their lives on the front line?

[National Defence, May 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the government is putting the lives of our soldiers in Iraq at risk by publishing photos of their faces.

The minister does not think that there was anything wrong with publishing the photos because the defence staff approved it. However, in the same type of photos authorized by the same defence staff a year earlier, the soldiers' faces were blurred out. The minister's explanation therefore does not make any sense, particularly since we have learned through the Ottawa Citizen that operational security was put aside for public relations value.

Will the government do the right thing and admit that it made a mistake?

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2016]

Madam Chair, we are told that $3.7 billion was deferred. Then we learned from the Ottawa Citizen that the Arctic offshore patrol ship project was cut by $173 million, the CF-18 program was cut by $109 million, the Cyclone helicopter project was cut by $90 million, the program to modernize our Halifax-class frigates was cut by $71 million, and the integrated soldier system project was cut by $39.4 million.

Can the minister confirm those budget cuts?