Your question really gets to the heart of the joint strike fighter program, and the emphasis is on “joint”. In the partnership of the original eight countries, the idea was that by funding annually the payment of the research and development on this aircraft, the companies in your country would be able to benefit from the global supply chain and bid on them. My understanding from DND estimates is that about $2 billion U.S. has already been obtained in contracts by Canadian firms. The flip side is that you end up having to buy the aircraft, which was always going to be the challenge of having an “open competition” to replace the CF-18, given the terms of the agreements and the payments we had been making into the joint strike fighter program.
The other loss, for lack of better terminology, is the fact that it's very hard, if not almost impossible, for Lockheed Martin in this particular case, to get points and offsets. They couldn't because the terms of the agreement.... Because Canada funded the agreement every year, Canadian companies could participate in the manufacture of this aircraft. Therefore, once more and more countries bought into it, the idea was that Canadian companies would be able to bid on the larger [Technical difficulty—Editor] dollar figure supply chain contracts over time.
That's one of the challenges, but the benefits, depending on the perspective, are being part of the partnership supply chain.