At the very outset, let me say that I'm not actually advocating any cuts—quite the opposite. I'm saying that assuming the budget stays at its current level, we still need to make these choices. That's the difficulty I see.
If we assume that we follow the CFDS funding formula, and that is not meeting defence-specific inflation.... Already right at the outset when CFDS was released, it became very clear quite quickly that it could not afford the equipment it hoped to buy. So the need to move towards niche capabilities is simply a function of the money that's being allocated already.
It's not that I'm advocating a cut in order to go towards niche capabilities, but what I'm saying is that when we look at the amount of money that's already planned for the DND CF over the next 20 years, some capability reduction will happen regardless of whether we go for niche or not, simply because we can't afford to recapitalize all the fleets under the current model.
So already those six missions, given the funding envelope that exists, don't seem to be sustainable. That's my concern.