National Defence committee  Thank you, Minister. Mr. Chair, further on the lapsing question, as the minister has alluded to already, since 2004-05—in other words covering the last seven completed fiscal years, including 2010-11—DND has carried forward approximately 1.4% of its total spending authorities. T

National Defence committee  Let me quickly add that this is a federal initiative that started in 2005. We have moved now to the second phase.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, I don't have a list of all the sites. We are talking about $196 million for those sites over the next five years. But I don't have the list of sites at the moment.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is indeed an expensive business and the numbers are big. We actually manage a supply line coming out of the Canada First defence strategy that spans 20 years. When we look at our procurements, we look at them in the context of that timeline. The fact tha

National Defence committee  Yes—

National Defence committee  I'll be very quick. I welcome the question. We actually have two separate capital budgets within our capital vote that you see in the estimates. One of those capital budgets lets us reprofile the money that goes unspent into future years, with tremendous flexibility, because the

National Defence committee  I would perhaps defer to the vice-admiral, if he wants to add more. I would say that these supplementary estimates do respond to our financial requirements for 2011-12. I would say, Mr. Chair, that we diligently manage our appropriations. You will know that there remains one mor

National Defence committee  Thank you, Deputy. Mr. Chair, with respect to the $28 million that is available to fund other initiatives because of the reprofiling, there was about a six-month delay in getting effective project approval to proceed with the construction of the centres. As a consequence, the s

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, the 2010-11 fiscal year is a very good example that we can use to answer this question. The public accounts will show that, versus the amount of money that was appropriated by Parliament compared to what we spent, there was about $2.4 billion unspent. However, in any g

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, as granting councils the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council provide funding for research deemed worthy in educational institutions across the country. RMC is an accredi

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, I take the question as not pertaining specifically to the F-35 but to provisioning in general. I would emphasize—and my colleague, the ADM Materiel, may want to intervene—that DND has actually a fairly solid record in estimating costs. Yes, some projects do go over.

National Defence committee  The government would first look to DND to fund that cost overrun from within its approved reference levels. DND would have to demonstrate with absolute clarity that it was unable to shift its priorities to cash-manage a cost increase to a particular project. We do not—certainly o

National Defence committee  Unfortunately, Mr. Chair, I don't have a copy of the public accounts with me. Off the top of my head, the $10.9 billion does not ring a bell. Our carry forward embedded in the “Lapsed” is actually about $443 million. But I'm sorry, sir, the $10.9 billion just doesn't ring a bel

National Defence committee  No, $950 million was left.

National Defence committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, I don't think you can judge the performance based on one year's data. Clearly 2010-11 was an anomalous year, and $950 million, a very large number. I've attempted to explain what drove that number. When we look at the seven-year history going back to 2004-