Yves Perron

“Mr. Speaker, CFB Wainwright is no longer front and centre in the news, but many of our service personnel are still in a critical situation from injuries and burns. We also think of the four who lost their lives at this time. It is a reflection of the dangerous work that our military, the navy, the army and the air force do, whether in combat or during training exercises. Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with the families and friends of these four soldiers and those who knew them, as well as with the numerous personnel. This strikes close to home because I did my basic training at CFB Wainwright and was involved in other military exercises afterward. That was decades ago. I have lived a full life since then. I want to live longer, but it has been decades. These young men had their lives cut short, and as we approach Remembrance Day, we reflect on the tens of thousands of Canadians who died on the battlefield, who drowned in the North Atlantic after their ships were torpedoed and who suffered unimaginable horrors as prisoners of war in internment camps under the Japanese or as slave labourers. It was terrible. About a decade ago, my wife and I had the privilege of going to Normandy and visiting Juno Beach, where the first Canadian Army landed, and around town. If members have not had a chance to see it, I would encourage them to the site at some point in their life, and other places in France and throughout Europe, such as Vimy Ridge. There are pictures of Canadians moving throughout the town under the hail of machine gunfire. Hundreds were killed and wounded. Lest we forget. Canadians are peace-loving. We have a tradition of peacekeeping. My father served in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 36 years and was based across Canada, in Germany and with the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Ismailia, Egypt and the Golan Heights. Growing up in a military home and having served in the military, I can say the Canadian military has always been on my mind and in my heart. I remember growing up during the years that Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the Liberal prime minister of Canada. I know that those were difficult days for the Canadian military. There were numerous base closures. Our troop strength was slashed and in many ways crippled. We went from having the third- or fourth-largest navy and air force to now being way down on the list, and it is dropping. Our ranking, as far as our military capacity goes, is dropping year by year, it seems. Our overall ranking is now 28th in the world. Our air force is 30th. Our navy is 45th. It has steadily dropped under the Liberals. I am not talking about our personnel. They are excellent. They are dedicated, loyal and professional, and I think they are admired wherever they are. I am talking about how under the Liberals, we have seen an ongoing decline and erosion of our military capacity in spite of the increased dangers we are facing. I understand that after the iron curtain came down, there was a peace dividend and people thought there would be no more war, but things have changed. Humanity has not changed, though. We were not prepared for previous world wars. We were not prepared for the First World War or the Second World War. One cannot just be ready at the call of a bugle. It takes training. It takes equipment. It takes investment. It takes enough personnel, too, and enough training. As for the Liberals, we are hearing a lot of talk but seeing little concrete action. I did not say “no concrete action”, because they will point to this expenditure or that expenditure, like the building of a new bureaucracy. The Liberals are very crafty. They will say they are on track to meet NATO’s defence obligations, but a lot of it is a sleight of hand. For example, they have the Coast Guard now as part of their defence calculations, which was not there beforehand. There are other things that were never part of the defence calculations but now are. The percentage is going up, but actually, in reality, it is going down. As a matter of fact, it is not just staying the same; the investments we are seeing are going down. It is getting worse. I talk with service personnel. The training budget and operating budget have been slashed year after year. This year it was another 10%. The operating budget is already low. It is tough. The infantry, for example, needs to be able to shoot ammo, but a lot of times, even ammo is at a premium. It is really tough. As recently as 2024-25, 40% of maritime key fleets were not serviceable for training and operations, as well as 50% of key army vehicles and 57% of aircraft. Those figures are actually getting worse. We then have the retirement of the Snowbirds. They are part of the military. They are a symbol of Canada, a very important symbol. The Liberals said they were going to bring a replacement aircraft, that they were going to close this down and replace these jets in the 2030s, forgetting that they just modernized these aircraft in 2021 for $29 million. Modernizing the aircraft is not the reason. We are living in a dangerous world, and the Liberals are just traipsing along. Think of what is happening in the battlefields in Ukraine and Russia right now. We have to be much more nimble and ready for hostilities. The Conservatives believe in equipping our forces quickly but also in being sensitive to the Canadian taxpayers, who foot the bill. Under the Harper Conservatives, we bought 650 new LAVs, light armoured vehicles; 500 tactical armoured vehicles; and 100 Leopard tanks. The previous government, under Chrétien, was actually disposing of them. We bought two main battle tanks, 82 armoured heavy support vehicle systems, 50 Nyala armoured vehicles and 37 M777 howitzers. For the air force, we bought five brand new CC-177 tactical Globemasters so we can move equipment around. We bought 21 Chinook helicopters and 17 new CC-130J Hercules models. We upgraded our CF-188s and made the decision to buy the F-35. We got things done. We did not need another bureaucracy under the Defence Investment Agency, which has been in operation for 10 years and has not had any purchases, nothing. The Liberals now want to make it a Crown corporation that is at arm’s length. Well, that is fine. It is not at arm’s length, because under the terms, contrary to all other Crown agencies, it must do what the minister requires it to do. It has much less accountability to Parliament. It can move things around, have contracts and do sole-source contracts that are in its interest, not accountable to Parliament. This is a travesty.”