Mr. Chair, I would also, with your permission, like to ask a question about the International Traffic and Arms Regulations, or ITAR.
But before that, I want to recall something comical, Mr. Minister. I will always recall the time when I bought my first car. I had seen it in a garage and it was really the one I liked. My father told me then that, if I went to the garage to see this car and I wanted to buy it, I had to be very aloof and not show how much I wanted it.
The government has made a lot of progress towards the procurement of planes, particularly with Boeing. It practically gave the company a cheque, by saying that it had secured the contracts, with the result that subsequently it is hard to negotiate. Boeing and Lockheed Martin may eventually say that their planes were wanted and that they were prepared to supply them to us, but that ITAR was not prepared to let them go.
The government does not have any negotiating arguments left to convince Boeing and Lockheed Martin to be permissive. With such a contract, technological transfers and intellectual property rights are extremely important. And these aspects are the direct concern of ITAR. If the Americans do not want to go along with it under ITAR, you will no longer have a solution. It will be impossible to backtrack and say that you do not want their planes anymore, that you want to buy them somewhere else.
Has the Canadian government placed itself in a position of weakness in relation to the negotiations? Someone will have to make sure, before the final signing of the contract, that ITAR will be more flexible.