Good morning, and welcome to all of our witnesses. It's great to see all of you again.
I want to dig in a little bit more, because both of you touched on the procurement situation.
There was an announcement this morning of 40 sniper rifles being purchased to be supplied to Ukraine, which are coming out of Winnipeg from PGW. I can tell you that this sniper rifle procurement was asked for last year by the Ukrainian government. The procurement was completed by the company and the rifles were completely built and purpose-ready by the end of last summer. Here we are almost a year later before it has finally been announced that the rifles are going to be moving.
When we look at procurement in general.... Ambassador Buck touched on the need for more ammunition. In terms of the facilities and capabilities here in Canada, we have General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems just outside of Montreal, which can build purpose-ready ammunition, including the 155-millimetre rounds to go into our M777 howitzers. Ukraine has four of them, as well as M777s from other allies.
Do you think we need to actually start moving a little quicker on getting this procurement fixed?
What's the big holdup, from the standpoint of the former NATO ambassador and the community of the UCC? What are some of the impediments to actually getting ammunition, sniper rifles and other military materials procured for Ukraine?