Until 2025.
Evidence of meeting #32 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aircraft.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #32 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aircraft.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
Until 2025.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Until 2025, okay. So it won't go past 2050 and beyond; you have no plans for that.
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
To go past 2050, did you say?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Yes, the year 2050 and beyond. Will you have the ability to support parts and so on?
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
Oh, well, there is a difference between the production of the aircraft and the capability to support the aircraft. We have always supported all our customers throughout the operational life of their aircraft. Today there are Mirage III and Mirage V operational since the end of the 1960s that we still support without too many problems.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Have any of the other JSF MOU partners selected the Rafale as their long-term fighter solution?
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
No. Today, the Rafale is only ordered by the French armed forces.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Could you tell me why none of the other JSF MOU partners have selected it as their long-term fighter solution?
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
I have no idea. They probably consider it as their best solution.
What I can tell you is that in one of those cases, namely in the Netherlands, we came out of the competition almost on par with the F-35. Frankly, I consider two one-hundredths of a point as more or less on par with the F-35.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
That's their sovereign decision.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
If Canada had to manage its own sustainability, would we have full access to all the intellectual property immediately?
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
It is the policy of our company and of the French government to give full access with no restriction to all the technological content of the aircraft a customer is buying.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
You've stated that you have a form of stealth, a low-altitude observability, and passive weaponry system for the Rafale, and given the open architecture.... Canada will need certain specifics for our 65 aircraft. Who would pay for all the research and development and retrofit that is specific to the Canadians if we were to order the Rafale?
5:10 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
It is usually the customer who pays for specific developments.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Do you think that the Rafale could be interoperable with the F-35 of our MOU partners over the long term, until 2015?
5:10 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
Of course. If this would not be the case, it would mean that France would get out of any possibility of multinational operations with its NATO allies, which is not the case. The Rafale is fully interoperable with its allies. It will stay that way, and it will have the capability—and it has the capability now—to be fully integrated in a C4I environment with the allied systems like Link 16, with Crypto Radio. It has the capability to be included in a network-centric warfare. And like many aircraft of the future, it includes multi-sensor data fusion that will process the data.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Thank you, Chair.
It seems awfully difficult to get a real handle on the costs. The F-35 went from $50 million to $70 million, and a previous witness from Boeing said their off-the-shelf price was $52 million, $42 million without engines--it wasn't clear that it actually came with wings--and your price seems to be 70 million euros, which on the face of it makes it slightly more expensive than the F-35. Yet you just said that in a competition you came within cooey of the F-35. Ultimately, you didn't succeed.
Tell me about that competition. Is that competition a breach of the memorandum of understanding among the various partners in the F-35?
5:10 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
I'm sorry, I didn't understand very well. Is that competition a breach...?
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
We've been told that we can't enter into this competition because of the memorandum of understanding, yet the Netherlands has the same issue. Why is it that the Netherlands can have a competition but Canada can't?
As far as you're concerned, it wasn't an issue.
5:10 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
No, no... Well, the Dutch Parliament ordered the Dutch government to conduct an evaluation of the various types they had selected, and they did it.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Assistant Director, International General Directorate, Dassault Aviation
The F-35, Rafale, Eurofighter, and I think Saab Griffen was in it as well.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
