I've had the privilege of visiting Bagotville a number of times—I've seen the tremendous work they do—to get a better sense of what type of future investments are needed, not just on the aircraft, but also for the base; infrastructure plays a very important role when it comes to our NORAD mission.
My discussions very early on looked at the requirements for the number of aircraft needed. First, we needed to focus on the requirements of what we actually needed it for. The previous government said we needed only 65. When we did the analysis, we realized we needed far more than that. That's the reason we have 88. This is good news for Bagotville, in terms of where the future fighter replacement is going.
To do that transition responsibly, for the CF-18s, we are going to be investing $360 million in that. A price tag is only a price tag. We have to understand why and where it's going. This is not only about modernizing the aircraft for the life extension, but also giving it the capability to make it better.
I'll give you an example. New helmets were purchased by the previous government. It's great to have a proper helmet, but if you don't have the right missiles to do the right targeting, it doesn't provide much value. We're upgrading that to make sure it has the right weapons system. So the current platform.... As we transition into the new fighter that will eventually be selected for the process, we're investing in that so Bagotville has not only the right number of aircraft to carry out the missions, but the upgraded pieces so they can actually do more, because it's not just a NORAD mission. Right now, we have air policing in Romania, and we have approximately 10 fighters in Trident Juncture. That's around 18 aircraft that are doing other missions.
The point is that we are not only looking at the fighter fleet but we're looking at the important aspect of Bagotville. The air task force, the deployment pieces, has gone into Bagotville as well.