Defence is a very small part of our business at Pratt & Whitney Canada. It's difficult to sometimes fathom why, because we provide engines for helicopters, engines for UAVs, and so on. There's a search and rescue competition, so called, currently. Three of the four providers have full Canadian content, and the military is really not moved by that aspect, and so it has a potential in terms of that procurement program and other programs.
I think the issue is a little more difficult in the sense that when you have something like Afghanistan, which is present and therefore you want to do things immediately, then there's an understanding of some of the activities. Quite frankly, what I don't believe is in the process is that longer-term vision of how we're going to get there in the longer term. Again, coming back to search and rescue, that was seen ten years ago, but the fact is that process was sort of predetermined on the end product rather than on the process towards that. There are lots of very capable individuals and companies in this room that can provide some very good product in that area, and the same thing with helicopter programs and other programs.
Having said that, I think the fundamental issue, and the fundamental issue for any government in the past and in the present, is to be able to get a handle on the long-term defence procurement strategy. When we compete against the United States, it's automatic that if it's a military program it's 100%, it's funded, it's not repayable, and so on. If we compete in Europe we're under similar constraints and similar difficulties. If we compete with the United States on commercial, there's 50% support and that's non-repayable even in some of the applications. The military applications in other countries are the applications that are used effectively to be able to provide in those countries a strong military spend, which then becomes the basis for future programs that can become commercial.
The long-term vision is extremely important. We must not always be caught up in sort of, “let's get something for today”, and we start looking for something for tomorrow.