Mr. Chair, my office and I respect the independence of the Auditor General, and in fact we take the recommendations very, very seriously. The only fiasco that was created was by the previous government in bungling the replacement of the fighters a long time ago. These jets should have been replaced, but the Conservatives did not get it done.
Recruiting of our pilots was very important even before we actually made the decision in our defence policy to increase the number of fighter jets so that we can meet our NORAD and NATO commitments simultaneously. We had decided that we needed our pilots and we started recruiting immediately, including mechanics as well.