Our government is committed to rebuilding the armed forces--the army, navy, and the air force. With rebuilding, we're talking for the long term. You have to look 20 years or so into the future.
In the case of tanks, the army and the Chief of Defence Staff recently came to the conclusion that we require main battle tanks into the long future. If future governments commit the military to insurgencies of the nature of Afghanistan, we're going to need, among other things--we also need LAVs and everything else--battle tanks to provide protection for our troops and to deal with certain tactical situations where it requires heavy fire power.
We had two challenges. We had an immediate technical problem we had to overcome in Afghanistan. That's why we're leasing 20 tanks for Afghanistan. They will be there in a few months. But the tank purchase isn't, per se, for Afghanistan. It's for the long term for the armed forces. It's like replacing the CF-18; it's not necessarily for some operation offshore.