Mr. Page, the one thing I want you to come away with is that the official opposition, as I said at the beginning, is strongly in favour of a vibrant aerospace industry in this country. Our concern is whether or not the process to date has in fact been transparent and whether there has been a real competition. Mr. Williams was before us and indicated there really was no real competition. Obviously, he had been in this business a long time.
Some of my friends on the other side may not agree, but the fact is that we are for a strong national defence and we don't take second place to anybody when it comes to that. We don't take second place on the issue of believing that there should be planes that will do the job. Well, I'm still not quite sure why this plane is the plane to do the job, but the fact is that some argue that it is.
We want your industry to be extremely competitive. We want your members to do very well. We just want to make sure, though, that there are the economic guarantees out there, so that at the end of the day no one in this country is shortchanged. Up till now there are questions as to whether or not that is actually taking place, but I don't want any members of your industry to come away with any other thought than that the official opposition, this party, is supportive. I say this because there have of course been some comments made and derision by some suggesting that somehow we are weak on defence. I again remind everyone that it was the Martin government that put $15 billion, the largest amount of money in Canadian history, into national defence.
So we will continue to explore these issues because we believe that at the end of the day it will be good for your members, and, most important, it will be good for Canadian taxpayers.