National Defence Committee on Feb. 28th, 2011

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay. The only consideration we really have with this is the statement of operational requirement. It's not injurious, from a national security perspective, but releasing it to the committee before the process is announced would potentially prejudice the competitive process we're going to launch on that.

The suggestion from the Chief of the Air Staff was to release the high-level mandatory capabilities, but not release the SOR until that process has been released to the competitors, because it would prejudice the competitive process.

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

Which document is this now?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Sorry, it's the statement of operational requirement. It's the last one on the first page: the statement of operational requirement fixed-wing search and rescue project, version 4.1.

Even if it is released, there will be some redactions, because there are some matters of national security.

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

Is this not the version the NRC was reporting on?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'm not sure of the version. This was the 2006 version. I'm not sure whether there's a more updated version. I assume you would want the most updated version.

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

Are we looking at the same thing?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

The last one on the first page.

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

NSS-2010 backgrounder?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

No, it's DND 2006 statement of operational requirement. It's the bottom one on the first page that I've got here.

Oh, sorry, we laid that out in different format. It's the fourth one down.

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

The fourth one?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, sorry.

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

Statement of operational requirement fixed-wing search and rescue, version 4.1.

[An hon. member]

That's it.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

That was the 2006 document. I assume you want the most up-to-date one.

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

That's the one the NRC was commenting on, isn't it?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes.

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

What about the most up-to-date one? Are you going to give us that one?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I don't know if there's a more up-to-date one than that. I'm saying that releasing the most up-to-date one would be injurious to the competitive process.

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

Well, I haven't asked for the most up-to-date one here. There may be an amendment proposing that we have that, but that hasn't been tabled yet.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I don't know what restrictions NRC may have had in the use of that 2006 document. They may have had access to the document with certain provisos that they had to protect some information. I don't know.

I'm just saying there was concern from the Chief of the Air Staff that some of the information is injurious to the competitive process, if it's released before release to the public for potential bids.

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

We're not talking about the 2006 statement now, are we?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'm still talking about that one. NRC may have had access to the statement of operational requirement, but they may have had some restrictions on it because of the very thing I just mentioned. They want to be careful about compromising the competitive process, because it has to be fair and all that.

I'm just raising a concern.

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

I understand the concern, but are you suggesting the statement of operational requirement would not be made available to people who were seeking to bid on the project?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Well, of course, but not through this committee. It gets released to them as part of the bid package that goes out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Do you have an amendment to propose to that motion?