Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Through you, thanks to the Auditor General and his team for being here today.
I want to pick up where my colleague, Madame Blanchette-Lamothe, left off, talking a bit about the helicopters. I went back to the 2010 AG's report, chapter 6, about the acquisition of the military helicopters, because I wasn't around at the time and I understand you weren't, Mr. Ferguson. However, it set off lots of bells in my head when I was reading your report.
Without delving too deeply into that report, I want to read out some of the chapter subheadings to you. The subheadings deal with changes in contract provisions not consistent with this procurement strategy; the developmental nature of the helicopter being underestimated; the full life cycle costs, including in-service support not being determined; and management oversight and approval of senior boards missing at key decisions in the project. All of this, I'm sure, sounds very familiar to you from your own report. I think that most of the findings from your own report could fit quite comfortably under those chapter subheadings.
Yet what troubles me about your report, Mr. Ferguson, is that there is a disconnect between your conclusions and the recommendations, I believe, in that they don't address many of the issues and conclusions that you've come up with in the chapter. It doesn't deal with risks associated with the developmental nature of the F-35, with the absence of cost mitigation strategies, and—most fundamentally, I think—with the absence of adherence to what you call “legislation, policy, and departmental guidance” related to the procurement process.
All your conclusion really tells us is that the government has to refine its costing, which I find to be a curious word in light of your findings here that $10 billion, or 40%, was left out of cost estimates by the department.There is no connection between those conclusions and the findings here.
I wonder why you didn't address the glaring issues and the conclusions that you found in the report in your recommendation.