Thank you very much, Minister.
It's a pleasure to see you again, General Hillier and Mr. Fonberg. Congratulations on your new position; we'll be calling you often.
Today it's about estimates, so we're talking about spending and saving. There are two issues I'd like to talk about. I want to talk about the Auroras. As well, you've rightly said that we have to be respectful of our veterans, so I would like to talk about our veterans.
Of course we only have 10 minutes. I'll try to save some time for my friend Mr. Savage, because he has some very important questions to ask too, so I will have short questions and I'm expecting short answers.
First, in November the air force cancelled Aurora surveillance flights in the north for several months because of long-term maintenance issues in the aircraft fleet. We know that you decided to take a final decision just before Christmas to eventually cancel the Aurora program. We had already spent $955 million to modernize the Auroras. That was not only a great program; it would have been a good way to save taxpayers' money, and at the same time the Auroras would have been able to fly until 2025.
The decision that you take on December 18 will cost the Canadian base in Greenwood approximately 1,000 jobs. For the aerospace industry in Nova Scotia and the Maritimes, for Canadians, it would be a loss of more than 2,000 jobs. Now we're talking about 3,000 jobs.
I want to tell you, Mr. Minister, that the Liberals are totally against that. We believe the Aurora program is great not only for the sake of search and rescue, which you supposedly have respect for, but at the same time because of the Arctic, which I think is important.
I would like to hear from you. I asked the Auditor General to take a look at that. I asked her to make a formal inquiry into it. Would you confirm to us that you have already taken the decision that you will cancel the Aurora program? Why do you want to cancel it? It takes only $600 million to $800 million, instead of buying new planes that won't be ready until after 2016.