Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, thank you for appearing.
I'm very much interested in this subject. I have a lot of personal views that I'll keep to myself because, you know, we're part of a team.
One of the things I have noted, and I guess, Mr. Berkok, you can attest because I have here that you are from the department of management and economics, so an economist you may be. I have a couple of questions, and then you can answer them within the time allotted.
Most western democracies, if you look at their domestic press, are criticized for their procurement abilities and strategies. Despite what an academic may see, people in those countries just see problems with the military procurement processes. But I think, based on my experience as an MP, our ability to acquire C-17s, the C-130J, the armoured patrol vehicles, tanks, Chinook helicopters.... All these things were needed. They were needed rather quickly, and they were obtained quickly. So we were nimble. We were able to take processes the Canadian public, the majority of whom understood why it was being done, accepted.
In your opinion, how and why did the government have such notable success—I'll let you determine whether it was or not; I believe it was—with these projects, but not others? What lessons can be learned?
I will go directly to the national shipbuilding procurement process. Historically, if you go back 60 years or so, Canada did have a capability to build ships. We have the third largest navy, etc., etc. We lost that capability because we failed to keep renewing our fleets. Now we have a decision to make as a country. We have to renew our fleets. From my perspective it's a matter of how we get people working, how we regain that which we historically had, create the jobs, and from an economic perspective, then be able to be in the marketplace to sell that, such as the United States, which as far as I'm concerned is the power it is today because of its military industrial complex.
I wonder if you could each take some time to comment on what I just said.