National Defence committee  It's fair to say, in a perfect world, that if you had every possibility at your disposal, you would be able to best serve. Right? But we don't have the financial wherewithal to do that. We don't have a lot of things. So it does come down, ultimately, to the performance and the ri

National Defence committee  I would say we don't prefer or not prefer. We emphasize again that different options are to be considered. Depending on your financial and risk tolerance, those decisions can be made. It's not really our job to advise on those choices. It's only to say, if you want choices, this

National Defence committee  It's a very big question. I think in simple terms the performance standard that needs to be met is clearly an important consideration. As I said in response to some of the others, having set a performance standard with a risk tolerance associated with it, one is able to determin

National Defence committee  Again, that's the political question, really. As was mentioned earlier, the decision about service, the question about what's going to evolve in terms of future requirements and so on, does have to be judged and become an intimate part of the decision, but that's a decision made

National Defence committee  As I mentioned, the report was tabled. We had what I would call a normal kind of interaction, with various clarifications, etc., sorted out. The report has been accepted. Like you, we're now waiting to see what the specific recipient departments will do with it.

National Defence committee  We addressed the urgency earlier with the comment that aircraft can have life extensions. The current fleet isn't suddenly going to terminate in its capabilities. It can be maintained in various ways for some time. I probably shouldn't say this, but I like watching Ice Pilots N

National Defence committee  If I might, just let me clarify a little bit what “performance-based”, when we talk about it, really means. The nature of engineering is about risk, and risk management, basically. In order to manage risk, one has to understand where it comes from and how it is constrained. So w

National Defence committee  Not exactly. It's a conclusion you could potentially draw, but I don't think it's an accurate one. We're saying it can get in the way of perhaps making a fully knowledgeable decision, a fully open decision. That's the issue. So if you open it up a little bit, then you'll allow o

National Defence committee  There are a whole series of areas, and I'm going to let my technical friend here go for it.

National Defence committee  I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that nobody is going to design an aircraft for the specific Canadian requirement. What we're trying to say is that there are going to be things that need to be done to fit the aircraft to the Canadian requirement. So there will be some wo

National Defence committee  Exactly. You're going to have an airframe, and that's what it's going to be.

National Defence committee  Well, that was a long statement, so if I could pick and choose, maybe that would help. I guess I would say we're fans of what you might think of in the jargon of design and standards as “performance based”. So with that--

National Defence committee  It would be “this is what we're trying to achieve”, and we'd leave open the capacity to be innovative in terms of how it is achieved. But the ability to be innovative depends to some degree on political decisions, not on technical decisions, so you have to ultimately bring that t

National Defence committee  In fairness, I'm not familiar with this. I was just asking if my colleagues were. I think the challenge it comes down to again is that, as we know, sometimes we can measure things in different ways. I think in the end, from our point of view, what we're trying to be cognizant o

National Defence committee  There would be costs that we have not been charged with looking at. We looked at the constraints, not at the impact of the costs, and there is a difference there. That's why I say that to some degree we're talking about decisions that others have to make about the viability of va