Okay. Following up on that, interestingly, just on September 21, the United States Government Accountability Office came out with a report on their F-35 program, stating that the life-cycle cost for America's fleet will amount to $1.7 trillion, which is $680 million per aircraft. The same study said that $1.3 trillion of that, which was about 76.5%, was for the operational sustainment of the F-35s. Then there are more statistics, of course, coming out about mass deployment being required. Only 55% would be usable of those F-35s, and a lot of time is required for maintenance.
The report talked about Lockheed Martin's price gouging and stated that by 2036, the F-35 project will be unaffordable for even America's defence budget. This is quite concerning to hear, of course, considering that we're going into a massive purchase and, by America's own watchdog numbers, that life-cycle cost is far outweighing what they believe they can even afford. In addition to that, we know this is happening on American soil. They're doing their own updating and maintenance there, which would heavily impact Canadians in terms of the wait-list.
I know that the PBO is supposed to do a life-cycle costing. We are anxiously awaiting that, but can you talk to this committee about the fact that this could be a potential problem, what you foresee and how your department is trying to ensure that we won't fall into a lot of those same problems?