National Defence Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[Yves Robins]

The ranking?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes. How did they finish in the competition?

[Yves Robins]

As I told you, the F-35 and Rafale finished—

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You were virtually tied.

[Yves Robins]

Yes. The Eurofighter came next, and I think Griffen was.... They made a short list of three at a certain stage during the competition.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The Hornet wasn't in the competition.

[Yves Robins]

No, the Hornet was not.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Okay.

Recently, France and Great Britain entered into an understanding, at least, an historic understanding, really, to share defence information and capability. Does that affect your company in any way?

[Yves Robins]

It affects it in a very positive way, because it might very likely open the possibility for joint cooperation with the British aerospace, with BAE Systems in the field of UAVs.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You said that you had—correct me if I'm wrong—something in the order of about 200 airplanes actually committed.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

There's a big hook that comes out here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. McKay. We really appreciate your presence in our committee.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'm charmed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

I'll give the floor to Mr. Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming, Mr. Robins.

I would like to follow up a little bit. You talked about the competition that took place between the F-35 and others. I wonder if you could give us some specific details on that competition. Was it a paper competition? Was it on price? Was it on capabilities, interoperability, stealth? Maybe you could give us some of that information.

[Yves Robins]

From what I remember, it was a comprehensive evaluation of the different models, with all the available means that the Dutch air force could have.

Obviously, at that time it was not possible to make an in-flight evaluation of the F-35, so the evaluation was made from the paper information provided by the manufacturer to the Dutch air force, whereas the Dutch air force went on the spot to where the other aircraft were manufactured and performed an in-flight evaluation of those aircraft. That in-flight evaluation was a pretty comprehensive one. It involved several flights addressing several types of operational concerns. They made their evaluation and they came back with their conclusions, and the result of that evaluation was published in the Dutch press.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I haven't seen that, so I—

[Yves Robins]

It was in 2002.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Certainly it leaves some questions open on that whole process.

One of the other things I wanted to touch on, and one of my colleagues from across the way I think touched on it, is the industrial benefits. You said that certainly you have done that in the past. I'm wondering if you could tell us, with other countries that you have sold the Rafale to, what were the industrial benefits that were given to those countries? Is it dollar for dollar? You did talk about transferring technologies, so....

[Yves Robins]

I didn't talk about countries that bought the Rafale. So far the Rafale has been sold only in France, but I'm referring to programs such as the Mirage 2000, the Mirage F1, the Mirage III and Mirage V. Every time it depends, really, what the customer country wishes to have as an industrial return. For instance, when we sold the Mirage 2000 to the Greek air force, there was one part that was devoted to production of other aircraft. It was the production of Mirage 2000, even the production of Rafale.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Do you have another question, Mr. Payne?

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

May I have one more question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

You have 15 seconds.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Fifteen seconds.

In terms of the competition, they flew the other aircraft, but not the F-35?

[Yves Robins]

That's correct.