Harper took it to an all-time low in the post-WWII period despite constantly talking a big game. Harper was worst than PET! At least PET's rhetoric was closer to his spending (we still have PET's CF 18's), Harper was a complete contradiction. The Liberals prior to Harper did deplete the military, but at least the message was not at complete odds with action. Mulroney wasn't bad for a while, but after raising spending for a while, he cut it back to around the level it was when he got in. I recall him being fairly consistent between message and action. Harper is the worst PM since Diefenbaker's  bull-headed destruction of the Avro Arrow (Diefenbaker, on that basis was worse, but still spent more than Harper).