Thank you.
Mr. Williams, I think it is fair to say that one of the most important factors in procurement policy is accountability. One has the impression, and I am not being partisan here, since we saw the same thing when the government was Liberal, that there is a ping-pong game going on between the departments. I am therefore in favour of this agency.
I would like to talk more specifically about your experiences. You talk about current political interference. When giving his speech a few years ago, General Hillier described himself as a man of decision. He said it was not up to him to go over 15,000 pages of criteria, that he defined four or six principles and decided which planes, helicopters and everything else that he wanted to acquire.
We get the feeling when
what we call the SOR, the statement of operational requirement,
is being prepared at National Defence, that they arrange things to get what they want.
How can we talk about the integrity of the process if we really feel like the dice are loaded from the start? How can we talk about competition when we know, in terms of conditions, that the policy really consists of drawing lines in the sand?
Could you please elaborate on the question of political interference? How can we prevent this type of thing?
This will perhaps be my last question.
We're talking a lot about the paper anything and saying that out of the shell is the greatest thing. Would you make a difference between out of the shell and the paper plane, for example? I believe it's always upgrading anyway, and you don't have such a thing.
Maybe if we want to have a true competition, instead of playing with the requirements, we should stick to the plan, and like the C-17, have two companies and may the best one win.
What do you think?