National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to present to the committee today. My name is John R. McDougall, and I am President of the National Research Council of Canada, or NRC. I am accompanied today by Mr. Jerzy Komorowski, Director General of the Instit

National Defence committee  The process actually began before I arrived at NRC.

National Defence committee  I think the real question is why. I think what happens is, in the case of a complex procurement agenda, government takes a look at the circumstances of the procurement and looks for the kind of expertise that can be brought to bear in helping through the decision. The statement--

National Defence committee  The statement of operational requirement for a purchase of this scale is very large and complex. Often, when one does look at one of these, there will be, through third parties, an opportunity to improve that statement of requirement.

National Defence committee  I think what we did when we looked at the statement of requirement was to recognize that there were many, many elements in it, as was I think pointed out in my remarks. There were mandatory requirements, there were rated requirements, there were constraints--there were a variety

National Defence committee  October of 2009.

National Defence committee  How can I describe this? I can't comment on what the military was or was not trying to do. We are not really familiar with that. What we did was look at the statement of requirement—

National Defence committee  Our view is that it was overly constrained and that by moving to a performance-based or a capacity orientation rather than a platform orientation, you would improve the situation.

National Defence committee  No, from a platform.

National Defence committee  Jerzy, do you want to speak to the lifespan of current aircraft?

National Defence committee  The simple answer is that there are two elements to this particular discussion. One element is very technical, and we have an extremely knowledgeable DG who has been involved with the aerospace sector for many, many years, and is acknowledged around the world for his knowledge an

National Defence committee  And you are, let me assure you.

National Defence committee  Let me assure you that you are.

National Defence committee  As I think I noted in the opening remarks, the government received the report initially. There was interaction back and forth, and a final report was delivered to them. That would normally be the case in a circumstance like this. The technical evidence, if you like, or position i

National Defence committee  The report is public and has been publicly available for some time in both languages.