Claude Bachand: (BQ) St. Jean: When you send tanks, it’s not to re-build schools, it’s to seek out and hunt Taliban. The mission is directed too much towards military goals and not enough to reconstruction.
Gordon O’Connor: (Minister of Defence) “It is not a military-oriented mission as such but we have to bring the Taliban under control. Remember what kind of murderous regime it was before NATO moved in there.”
Bachand: He moves on to aerospace — to the procurement contracts for military aircraft. He speaks to the Boeing contracts for the C-17 and the Chinook helicopter. We want to have regional spinoffs. We want to have Canadian spinoffs that benefit from these multi-billion dollar contracts. “It seems that Boeing is deciding with regards to Canadian content.” About 60 per cent of the Canadian aerospace industry is located in the province of Quebec. Bachand says he’s worried the Canadian taxpayer will not get value for their money.
O’Connor: Says he’s not the Minister of Industry and so cannot speak to the industrial benefits aspect of the procurement package. “The equipment we’re requiring is what is need for the armed forces.”
Bachand : Says taxpayers are the losers. Says the minister knows the specs for the contract.
O’Connor: Says every dollar spent by the military to buy goods will be returned to Canada in the form of investment by the winning bidder.
Dawn Black (NDP): New Westminster-Port Coquitlam: Says that she has been told that the mission has cost $1.8–billion so far and could cost more than $2–billion. “These are the incremental costs, and not the full cost to DND.” If you add up the full costs, you get a sum of over $4.1–billion for the Afghanistan mission. She wants an update on the costs of the mission.
O’Connor: The incremental costs for the mission in Afghanistan right now is $2.1 billion. The estimated incremental cost to come is $1.8–billion. So the total incremental cost is $3.9–billion.
Black: Deploying the Leopard tanks she says will cost $157–million. She says that has to be weighed against cuts the Conservatives made here at home to literacy programs and programs to improve the status of women. She wants the costs of shipping each Leopard tank. She wants the costs of each Excalibur round fired by the M777.
O’Connor: The total to send the tanks to Afghanistan is $189–million. That includes transportation and all the other associated stuff. He says there are no Excalibur rounds in the armed forces.
[I’m in the press gallery in the House of Commons for a Committee of the Whole debate that is focusing on Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor.
The debate began a few minutes ago and could last until 9:30 pm or later tonight. MPs will come and go during this debate.]