SoVote

Alex Ruff

Member of Parliament
Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
Conservative

Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound
Ontario
Voting Attendance: 67%
Expenses Last Quarter: $91,173.06

Government Page

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Nov/3/23 12:40:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for bringing the motion forward. I would argue that other than the affordability crisis that we are dealing with in this country right now, the government's priority always has to be the defence and security of its citizens. We obviously have a weakness when it comes to what we need to do to improve things in the Arctic. I am looking forward to reading the whole report in great detail, considering my own past experience, in particular with recommendation 3 around ballistic missile defence. I would like to ask my colleague to expand, because it is more than just ballistic missile defence; we are dealing with hypersonic missiles and other threats. We are seeing this coming out of the Ukraine war as Ukraine fights against Russia's illegal invasion. We are seeing this with North Korea as well, as Russia, China and other nations are putting increased technology into North Korea as it develops these capabilities. It is absolutely essential that Canada invests appropriately and reconsiders our policy around how we are going to have an all around air defence policy. I would like my hon. colleague to please expand on that.

201 words

Context: House Hansard - 88 - Jun/14/22

Mr. Alex Ruff

Jun/14/22 6:08:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first off, I offer my congratulations to the member for Milton for his promotion, in my view, to become the parliamentary secretary of defence, as I guess that is why he is answering the question tonight. The parliamentary secretary failed to answer the question. It is the same question I asked the minister three months ago, and it is almost the same response. I do not need a history lesson, nor does anybody in this House, nor Canadians. We can all read the news. We know what Canada is doing, but what Ukrainians need is armoured vehicles. This is what they have asked for and, as confirmed as recently as yesterday, the government of this country has not even given the Ukrainians the courtesy of responding as to when they can expect to get those armoured vehicles. Ukraine is in peril. People's lives are in danger. Why can Canada not simply give old armoured vehicles to Ukraine?

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All Topics

Context: House Hansard - 53 - Apr/5/22

Mr. Alex Ruff

Apr/5/22 4:08:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, this is not an easy answer. It is justified, from my opinion, and we are obviously supporting putting 2% into our military, because as I explained in my speech, the world is a volatile place and people dying around the globe. I am not trying to take away from dental care or pharmacare, which are primarily provincial jurisdiction, but the point is that national defence is a federal jurisdiction issue, and it is what we should be focused on in the House.

85 words

Context: House Hansard - 53 - Apr/5/22

Mr. Alex Ruff

Apr/5/22 4:07:08 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, again, it is not an easy answer, but it is all of the above. We need to invest in our recruiting. Almost a decade ago, I tried to write a master's paper, and I failed miserably at that too, specifically about why we need to invest our best people within the Canadian Armed Forces into the recruiting system so we have that flexibility to recruit the best. As we all know, the huge labour shortages the country is facing, it is a shortage across most of the western world, so we have to get those right people. The other key aspect the government could do to help fix this is on the procurement side. One of the things that we are actually lacking within the government, in my opinion, is enough expertise within defence procurement alone. If we can invest more to get those quality people into that, it would allow the procurement cycle to improve. By investing in training, investing in support for families and investing in our members, we can never go wrong.

178 words

Context: House Hansard - 53 - Apr/5/22

Mr. Alex Ruff

Apr/5/22 4:05:13 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I have a brief response. I cannot even pretend to get into all the nuances and complexity of what the member is asking. I spent a year on an army defence procurement project. In my experience throughout my military career, the biggest challenge we had, and I think this probably exists in a lot of departments, was that we felt that if we did not spend it, we would lose it. The member's idea of carrying forward does not truly work, definitely not within DND. When it comes to these defence procurement projects, the real challenge is the political interference. I believe this so much, and I do not mean they do it on purpose. It is because we can get into this idea of why this project is what we need. We can look at previous parties during different elections, with different campaigns and how they ran on certain things, but ultimately they need to get out of that. That is why I believe in non-partisan or bipartisan defence policy and foreign policy.

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SoVote

Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians

Alex Ruff