Fraser Tolmie

“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague across the way for sharing her time. It is an honour to rise in the people’s house once again, to speak in regard to Bill C-40. I would like to commence my remarks by recognizing and giving honour to those to whom honour is due. Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces and their families who have been affected and devastated by the tragedy that has taken place at CFB Wainwright. I want to offer, to them and the Canadian Armed Forces from coast to coast to coast, our thoughts, prayers and sympathies to the families that have been affected and are going through loss at this time. Upon further reflection in regard to that, thinking of our brave men and women in uniform, past and present, and as we approach Remembrance Day coming up, it would only be correct for me to once again recognize that we owe a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid to those who paid the ultimate price, and to their families, who suffer so much along with them, providing such tremendous support and hope to Canadians. We are enjoying freedoms because they paid the price, they made sacrifices and their loved ones allowed them to serve. They have served in so many ways that we cannot begin to adequately express. On behalf of a grateful nation and on behalf of the good people of Tobique—Mactaquac, we thank all of them for their service and sacrifice. We give honour to them today. We recognize that the Canadian Armed Forces deserve the best of the best, and they deserve our best. They have an expectation of government, and rightly so, that if they are going to make sacrifices and go to serve a cause greater than themselves, they need the best equipment and supplies and the weaponry that they need to do combat in the 21st century. Part of that is making sure that we give them all the tools that they need to succeed. While I was thinking about this, I was reflecting upon how many times our brave men and women have punched above their weight in service to our country. The Canadian Armed Forces have done incredible feats throughout history. Whether it was at Vimy Ridge, where heroism was on full display; at Juno Beach when our troops, our brave young soldiers, stormed the beaches; the liberation of the Netherlands in the Second World War; the Korean War; those who served valiantly and bravely in the Persian Gulf War, or those who served more recently in Afghanistan and throughout various peacekeeping missions around the world, one thing that is clear is that their service, abilities and capabilities as fighting men and women are quite unparalleled in any other fighting force around the world. They are to be commended. They have always punched above their weight. To this day, they continue to excel and give their utmost in service to our country. That is why it is so important to get this type of bill right. That is why, when we invest in our brave men and women, we want to make sure we do it right, with the level of investment that it requires and deserves, but also with integrity around that investment to ensure that it is done properly and in the way it should be done. Too many times, we have gotten the defence spending aspect wrong in this country. It has not been the priority it should have been. This goes back throughout our history. Our brave men and women deserve much more. The government has committed to spending more on national defence, which we in the official opposition support. It is important that we make sure the safeguards are put in place, so that the money being pledged, and the spending that is going to happen, actually gets to the brave men and women who are wearing the uniform. It must get to the right equipment at the right time, expeditiously, and not be siphoned off through reams of more layers of bureaucracy, or be unaccounted for or not answerable to those who represent the people of Canada, namely the Parliament of Canada. Proper oversight and proper safeguards should be put in place. By doing that, we would be giving honour to the Canadian taxpayer, but also to the brave men and women who serve in our forces. The Canadian Armed Forces need equipment. They need it delivered. They need it on time, but they do not need another layer of bureaucracy. The Canadian Coast Guard, for example, most recently has been allocated under National Defence. Recently, at the government operations committee, I asked the defence officials who were representing it there whether the Coast Guard was still more or less a civilian operation or if it was being militarized. Are the ships being equipped with defences? Are they doing defence exercises? Are they being prepared and equipped, if they are part of National Defence, and is the spending that has been allocated under the Canadian Coast Guard for years now being attributed toward NATO required spending? I asked simply, in that committee, whether they are being equipped. The answer was that no, there are no defence mechanisms being put on the vessels. They said at that time that they were still continuing to do fish-counting operations and surveillance on the waters for fish, civilian and operational purposes, but really there was not a whole lot that would fall under the mandate of Canadian National Defence. As such, Canadians do rightly have questions, when we say we spent this much more under National Defence, whether it really is going to National Defence and equipment upgrades or it is going to reallocation through a budgetary mechanism. By reassigning certain departments, what was once under Fisheries and Oceans is now accounted for under National Defence. It helps augment the numbers quickly, but does it achieve the objective of providing the equipment that we need, the training that is needed and the resources that are needed to defend our nation and our waters? These are questions that Canadians legitimately have. There are reports of a proposed 10% cut in the Canadian Armed Forces operating budget. When we are talking about cutting 10% while saying we are going to augment and meet our NATO obligations, Canadians are right to ask how we square that circle. How does it come together that we are going to cut 10% out of operating budgets but somehow augment tremendously our level of spending on national defence? Canadians are right to ask how that goes together. I grew up in a little place called Hartfield, New Brunswick, and there, still to this point, two plus two equals four, but I am coming to learn in the House that this is not always the case. Sometimes two plus two equals 104 or 305 billion. I do not know. I cannot keep up with the figures that keep coming out of this place as relates to the finances of the nation. That is why we as the official opposition have an obligation to make sure, when it comes to procurement, that it is done properly, that it is prioritized, that the needs of the brave men and women in our armed forces are of the utmost priority and that what is needed is prioritized. If that is equipment, the forces get the equipment that they need. If they need more weaponry, they are going to get that weaponry. If they need better protective equipment, they get that. That should be the utmost priority, and contracts should not be awarded to friends and associates, those who are well connected in high places. They really should be going to those who are most qualified. I will end with this. There is a quick story that I am brought back to, and I hope I can squeeze it in. It is a story of a young man who was in a position of authority in a country that was not his own. He heard about his hometown, which was in a state of ill repair. The defences had fallen and the walls had collapsed, and this young man, whose name was Nehemiah, was quite distressed over the condition of the wall that surrounded the city where he grew up. He sought permission to come up with a strategy. He went back, and of course, it was dilapidated. It was in rough shape, and they did not know what could be done. The critics came, and they said that they could never do it for this reason; it would never get done for that reason; it was going to be faulty, and it was not going to be right. However, here is the good news: That young man came up with a strategy. He said that they were going to do something. Yes, there were threats that were emerging, and yes, it looked overwhelming to rebuild the defence of the city the way it should be, but they were going to put a brick in one hand and a sword in the other and build and defend at the same time. That is what the government needs to do, both build and defend. Let us do it together.”