I would like to point out, for the record, that after the Tsunami, there was no equipment-related problem, because in the course of 48 hours, once a political decision had been made, the Canadian Armed Forces were ready to go. So, it had nothing to do with the C-17, etc.
Two weeks was another issue. There was maybe some political bickering, but it had nothing to do with the equipment. We were supposed to do it. I was not in cabinet at that time, though.
General Lucas, you swear there was no intervention. We also know that the minister has the final say in writing on the requirements, so we can proceed with the rest of the process.
On May 1, Colonel Burt said there would be a meeting with the Minister of National Defence at 10 o'clock sharp.
There was some question about what is the CF vehicle that drives the weight, and at that time it was 43,000 pounds, and is this vehicle weight-limited, and so on. So you were discussing requirements with the minister.
On May 1, the final recommendation of Colonel Burt was as follows--he sent this to General Martin:
As you and I have discussed, tracked vehicles were not included on the understanding that they would not form part of a rapid reaction team. Do we still consider this valid in the context of recent DCP discussions? If a decision were taken to incl track vehicles, this would reduce contenders to one. I recommend we not incl the complexity of the ADATS in the Strat HLMC (and leave the HLMC as amended on 18 Apr);
So Colonel Burt's recommendation at that time was that we stick to the 43,000 pounds.
I would like to know, first, what was discussed with Minister O'Connor at that time, since there was some follow-up. On June 14, another e-mail says, “Bring us the latest version”, and this is at the exact moment that we changed the 43,000 pounds. So the payload was changed at that time.
What was the discussion? What was the decision? And why did we change a study of six years, the statement of operational requirements? Even in 2003, my colleague, the former Minister of National Defence, was sending a letter to the president and chief executive officer of Airbus saying that, “DND has completed its assessment of airlifters against its Statement of Operational Requirement, and the Airbus A400M has been found to be a fully satisfactory solution.”
Something happened. Perception is reality. I'd like to know what happened, since the experts, the ones who truly have all the expertise for the requirements, said we should stick to 43,000 pounds.