National Defence Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

[Tom Burbage]

There is a spectrum of activity in there. This is a very highly integrated and fuzed weapons system. I don't think Canada, as a military, as an MOD, has a desire to be able to change that code unilaterally, because now it's a unique airplane, but they will have the access they need. Such discussions will take place between the governments. We're not part of them. I'd be happy to answer the question if I knew, but we're not part of those discussions. They are government to government.

But there will be no restrictions on the Royal Canadian Air Force or Canadian industry maintaining the airplane in Canada. It does not have to go back to the United States to be worked on or anything else.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

These words “fifth generation” have been thrown around a lot. Some of your competitors—and I grant that they are competitors—have suggested that this is more a marketing device than anything else. Have you folks tried to trademark the name “fifth generation”? Was that one of your efforts?

[Tom Burbage]

I think we may have, a couple of years ago, yes, with the F-22.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Were you successful?

[Tom Burbage]

I can't answer. I don't even know. I don't follow that side of it.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

If you were, nobody else could call their product “a fifth generation airplane”, isn't that correct?

[Tom Burbage]

Well, they call themselves “4.75”, “4.9”, and “5.1”. They're all around us, but nobody actually uses “fifth generation”.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

They're not allowed to say five because you guys have a trademark on it.

[Tom Burbage]

I don't know. I still hear them use it, but--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

[Tom Burbage]

May I make a response to that? My response would be that I don't think you would see this level of investment in this technology if those airplanes were at the same capability.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

I will give the floor to our last member, for two minutes.

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Just to follow up on that, Canada, the U.S., Australia, England, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, and Israel are all pretty highly advanced countries. We all have budget limitations. It would be pretty odd if all 10 of those countries examined their requirements with similar constraints and all 10 countries came to the same conclusion. I would call that more than a coincidence, wouldn't you?

[Tom Burbage]

Yes, sir.

I think the countries have sophisticated ways of analyzing this technology and this capability, and they have all decided in favour of it.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, and we all hire pretty expensive people to examine these things at a very high level of classification, which is not.... There's a very small number of people, relatively speaking, who can read into the full capabilities of this program and of your airplane--

[Tom Burbage]

Correct.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

--so from a pure business point of view, if you were hiring these people and paying them a lot of money to advise you, do you think it would be prudent to listen to their advice?

[Tom Burbage]

I do.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all members.

Thank you, Mr. Burbage, for your participation in our committee. I think you answered a lot of the members' questions. Thank you very much. It was very useful for us.

That ends our meeting number 37. Our next meeting will be next week. We're adjourned.