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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 59

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 27, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 59 - Apr/27/22
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
  • Apr/27/22 4:47:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the irony here is that the member who just spoke was the parliamentary secretary for defence. We have to remember that, under Stephen Harper, the military expenditure was, at one point, less than 1% of the GDP. I am glad the member recognizes the value of the contributions toward the war effort in Ukraine, $500 million, but what he does not say is that there is an $8-billion increase for defence. Would the member not agree that for the first time since Stephen Harper, we have seen a real, tangible investment in the Canadian Forces today, because it was lacking during the Stephen Harper era, the time in which the member was a parliamentary secretary for defence?
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Context: House Hansard - 59 - Apr/27/22
Mr. James Bezan
  • Apr/27/22 4:48:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the member for Winnipeg North that under Stephen Harper, when we were at war in Afghanistan, there was defence spending. This is before the Liberals cooked the books on how we calculate the amount of money that is allocated to national defence by adding things like the Coast Guard, veterans' pensions and other things that are spent under foreign affairs, not under defence. If we had added those numbers in, we would have been well over 1.5% when we were at war in Afghanistan. When we pulled out of Afghanistan, defence spending went down because we balanced the books. The government here continues to spend recklessly. This means that the debts and deficits of today are going to be the taxes of tomorrow on our kids and grandkids, and we know the Liberals still have not made the investments, because the money they promise does not get spent.
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