Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, if you look at what other states, other countries, are doing in their recent procurements to replace their tactical fighters, none of them are taking five years to complete their competition. If you look right now, Denmark is doing theirs in two years, Belgium means to complete theirs right now in 18 months, and just earlier this week, Finland started their F-18 replacement program and plan to have their first deliveries in 2021 and the entire fleet replaced by 2025, which coincidentally is the same time that our life extension for our CF-18s runs out.
Why wouldn't the government want to go immediately to an open competition to replace all of our jets and buy the 88 that you've said in your defence policy that you need?