Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for joining us, Mr. Ross.
Mr. Williams, your predecessor, told us the other day that the MOU was not incompatible with the competition for the replacement for the F-18. It's our understanding that within your department there was work being done to provide for just such a competition, to begin this year. In fact, it seems that your minister was of the same view, because he assured the House of Commons on May 27—I don't know if you were there, behind the scenes—at the estimates committee that indeed there would be a competition. Lest there be any doubt, he said it later on the same evening, assuring us that participation in the joint strike fighter program was not to be construed as a statement that this couldn't happen.
If what you're saying today is so self-evident, how does that all fit together? How did we come from the minister's commitment on May 27 to the House to an announcement in July that all of this is now self-evident, that this is the only plane we want, that it is the only plane that meets the need, that there is no competition, and so on? We've seen, even today...you're the assistant deputy minister in charge of procurement, but you sound as if you're giving a PR defence at the beginning of your statement about the need for this plane. How did we get to that from an assurance that there was a competitive process that was going to be in place and that work was being done on a competitive process?