That's exactly right, Mr. Hawn. You have flown sorties both in Europe and in Canada, and you know the capability of that aircraft. But it is reaching, if I can use the vernacular, the “best before” date. It will be 30-plus years old by the time we begin to receive the new F-35s.
We need to plan ahead. We need to plan ahead so we'll avoid operational gaps, which we're seeing now with the maritime helicopters because of the cancellation. We need to plan ahead because we don't know what those airborne threats may be. There's been a lot of talk about Russia and old planes coming in. We don't know what their future capability will be. We don't know what non-state actors may pose as a threat to North America. We don't know what other countries we'll have in the air in future generations. That's why we want to invest in the best plane: to ensure mission success today but also well into the future.
It's clear that we don't know what's aboard certain planes when they approach Canadian airspace, be they commercial or unidentified, or be they any aircraft that does not announce its approach and potential encroachment into Canadian airspace.
So it's having that capability that is available to us. That's why the investment now, so that we can get something in the future to replace the CF-18. These are not off-the-shelf variants; these are aircraft we need to invest in now--that's without getting into all the benefits on the industrial side. We need to plan ahead, the same as we're doing with the navy, the same reason we're investing in other capabilities for land combat vehicles. It's buy now and receive in the future.