Mr. Chairman, Minister Clement has told us that this is a very affordable purchase. So far we've seen the costs go from somewhere between $38 million and $48 million per unit--estimate--up to $138 million, and we have no notion of the full life-cycle cost. The estimates have gone around to the total cost of $16 billion. Minister Ambrose has refused to put a number on it because in fact--quite properly--she doesn't know.
So how can we say that this is affordable when we haven't had a competitive bidding process, we don't have any bids on the life-cycle cost, and this cost could go anywhere for a new plane that's not actually even in operation and we don't know what the costs are going to be? How can you say that's affordable?