Thank you, Mr. Coderre.
The strategic and tactical transport needs of the Canadian Forces have been an issue for decades. The C-130 has proven to be a very valuable asset for the Canadian Forces and there's never been any lack of commitment to replace that capability over the longer term. As you well know, the current fleet of C-130s is in desperate need of replacement.
When I was Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, the thinking embodied in what we call the strategic capability investment plan, developed in 2003 and 2004, was that we had to focus on where the most dire need was for transport for the Canadian Forces. The C-130 was the locus, if you will, or the focus, of that attention, but a project to replace the C-130 aircraft in a wholesale fashion was simply not seen to be affordable in the near term. The approach taken was to develop a requirement for an area of the C-130 mission, that of fixed-wing search and rescue, to divert some of the pressure on the fleet by beginning a lower-priced project for a new aircraft that would specifically be able to do that part and take the pressure off the C-130, so that it would be able to do the more operational mission it had, because using a C-130 in search and rescue is a rather extravagant way of approaching it.
At that time, a strategic aircraft purchase, a C-17 purchase, was not seen to be affordable with the budget we had, so we did not include it in the budget, notwithstanding the fact that we recognized there was a need to provide strategic airlift. The approach taken was that we had the opportunity to charter aircraft when needed. We had our American and U.K. colleagues, our friends and allies, who had C-17 aircraft, and we had been able to use their services from time to time, but there was a risk that in a time of crisis, when everybody required strategic airlift, we would not have access to them. That was deemed to be a risk that we simply had to accept because there wasn't money in the projected defence budget to afford that aircraft.
Since the Conservative government took over, they have clearly declared that strategic airlift is a higher priority, which has made it affordable. It'll be a tremendous asset for the Canadian Forces. But at the time I was VCDS, and given the constraint requirements we had, we focused on the C-130s as the fleet that needed to be addressed.