I guess I'm wondering about the rationale and how this develops. The last thing the world needs is more people building weapons.
The military industrial complex is pretty well served by some big actors. I'm just wondering how throwing $1 million at a start-up arms builder in Canada is going to be able to compete with Raytheon. I had to look up a phone number at Raytheon one time, and there's 80 pages in their phone book of people and departments, etc.
So my first question is, what is the rationale behind trying to jump into the arms race?
Second, what obligation is there to buy Canadian afterwards? My experience with the Canadian military buying Canadian has been appalling.
Let me give you an example to help you answer this question. The Canadian military needed some troop carriers, and Winnipeg arguably makes the best buses in the world. They needed 32 new buses and they ended up buying Mercedes-Benz ones, even though they were was less than half a percent cheaper. This was a big contract—a $15 million or $20 million contract. For less than the price of a set of tires, they decided to buy German and send a message to all of our NATO allies that if you want a good troop carrier, don't buy Canadian, buy German; that's what we do.
There's no buy Canadian component. Aren't we setting these companies up for failure in trying to convince them to build guns and arms here, when we take the lowest bid at all costs? Has that apparent contradiction been thought through?