QUESTION PERIOD — National Defence
Canadian Armed Forces
June 11, 2024
Leader, in the wake of the eightieth anniversary of D-Day, it is striking to see how Canada’s standing as a trusted and reliable defence partner has faded under this NDP-Trudeau government.
Former Liberal MP Andrew Leslie is a retired lieutenant-general in the Canadian Armed Forces. He, leader, puts the blame squarely on the Trudeau government and recently told the National Post:
The current prime minister of Canada is not serious about defence. Full stop. A large number of his cabinet members are not serious about defence. Full stop.
Our NATO allies are despairing. Our American friends are frustrated.
Leader, is he right?
The person to whom you refer had served his country notably, and I’m not going to challenge his right to his opinion, but facts speak differently, colleagues. Defence spending under this government is up. We are much closer to approaching the 2% NATO level than ever before in our history.
I have said this before, and I don’t like to do this, colleagues, but you can go back to Hansard, where you will find comparisons between the level of defence spending as a percentage of GDP under the previous Conservative government and this government. Those figures alone indicate that this government, since it came into office, has continued to invest to a greater degree and to a higher percentage of our GDP than the previous government. Is it enough to satisfy every retired officer or our NATO allies? Perhaps not, but the government is heading in the right direction with its investments.
We are truly blessed that we will be able to see very shortly what the new Conservative government will do and how their defence spending will go, and I’m looking forward to that, as I’m sure you are.
This incompetent Trudeau government stewardship of our national defence has been one of pure negligence. Our forces are short about 16,000 troops, leader. Our army is hollowed out. Entire air squadrons are being shut down because they don’t have enough personnel. Leader, if this isn’t negligence, what is it, and where are they spending the money when we don’t have it?
The government is spending money on new generations of fighter pilots, on ships that defend our northern sovereignty. Again, colleagues, it is spending money at a much higher percentage of our GDP, notwithstanding even the pandemic years, than the previous government ever did.
