Mr. Chair, members of the committee,
let me thank you for your invitation to testify at this very important committee session.
Having listened all morning, I should also thank the members of this committee for the excellent work they are doing on behalf of all Canadians.
In 2009 the aerospace industry generated $22 billion in revenues; 80% of that was export. It provided value-added jobs to over 80,000 Canadians, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Moncton, Saint John, Montreal, Mirabel, the greater Toronto area, Winnipeg, Calgary, Abbotsford, Delta. I hope you get the message: our companies operate across this country.
Now, going to the F-35 decision, AIAC has been advocating for a timely decision to be made on the next generation of fighters, which was part of the Canada First defence strategy. We were therefore very pleased with the Government of Canada's announcement of its intention to proceed with the acquisition of the new generation of fighters this past July.
Several member companies' involvement in this platform date back to 1997. AIAC was favourable to Canada's involvement back then because it involved companies early on in the process, thus presenting rare opportunities for them to be involved at the level of concept development.
This is also a rare opportunity for companies to get fully involved in developing a new major platform. This idea is at the heart of AIAC's concerns, as described in our report on future major platforms, drafted in 2008.
The “future major platform” initiatives aim at positioning Canadian industry to win large, long-term, value-added job creation packages, on the platform of the future, over the whole life cycle of any aircraft.
As you all know, the F-35 is based on direct industrial participation. This implies that partners, stakeholders, must work together in order to ensure a maximum of opportunity. You've heard this morning from ministers and public servants that this could go as high as $12 billion, excluding sustainment and foreign military sales. We want to make sure that we get our fair share of the $385 billion that these planes will generate and cost over the period of 20 to 40 years.
Several companies have been and will be making significant investments up front in order to ensure their competitiveness to win mandates in these contexts. These are important, expensive business decisions that require stability, predictability, and a climate of certainty around the decision.
This decision provides the Canadian aerospace industry with an unprecedented opportunity, as long as we are able to work closely in order to derive maximum benefit for the entire country.
Now that the decision has been made, the AIAC will work at ensuring that Canada reaps the benefits in an optimal way. We need value-added jobs, technology transfer, as you just heard, and long-term stable contracts. We'll focus now on our efforts to make sure that companies are in a position to win the opportunities and, in collaboration with pertinent government departments, that a clear accounting system is put in place to track not only the quantity but the quality and the amount of work that Canadian companies will gain from this partnership.
Our role will be to ensure that our companies develop in a context where they will be able to derive optimal benefits. We also insist that a control system be implemented to ensure the quality and quantity of jobs created as well as of the work assigned to our companies under this partnership.
As for the maintenance of fighter planes, and pilot education and training, the AIAC Defence Committee will set up a task force with the objective of analyzing the options and recommending to the Government of Canada the best practices to implement.
In the meantime, we will strive to facilitate access for our companies to the global sustainment opportunities that are currently available, such as the maintenance of main systems—there are 40 of those—depot maintenance, and forging alliances with partner nations with more modest aerospace capabilities.