Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank our guests for coming here today and providing their insight.
My first question is for General Manson.
In the past, you have argued that renting military equipment is not only costly in the long term but that it could also compromise Canada's security. In a CTV news article from June 16, you were quoted as saying:
When a crisis occurs everybody needs these airplanes at the same time and Canada could find itself at the bottom of the totem pole of those who are looking for the rental of those facilities.
Could you elaborate on that? I think it has already been touched on a little bit today, but can you give me some examples of when that has happened? Has it happened to Canada in the past? And not just in the aircraft, but you can take a look at it from a naval perspective as well. I think we saw it in the attempted evacuation of Canadian Lebanese citizens from Lebanon and some of the competing nations that were going in there when we didn't have the domestic capability to do it ourselves.