Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to come back on the point I was going to speak to one minute ago.
We come to this table prepared to speak to the substance of these extremely serious matters. These are very serious projects. They're multi-year--10 years longer in the case of one and six years in the case of another to get them to where they are today. They're multi-billion-dollar projects.
There are formal rules in all of this for Treasury Board, Public Works, National Defence, and ultimately Parliament. We don't come to the table to say, “Not me. Not me. Not me.” It's us. We're here to answer the questions. We think they deserve serious dialogue. That's why we're here. That's the dialogue we're actually having.
On the action plan, I think the Auditor General's analysis and the facts that are in her report are extremely timely. The action plan speaks to lessons learned, whether it happens to be around the degree of modifications, full life-cycle costing, or in-service support. We have laid out an approach, which I think is a healthy approach, in each of those cases.
If one were to go back five years or longer, I think one would see that we are getting better and better at how we procure this complex equipment. I would also say it's only over the last five or six years that the funding line has emerged in such a way, and the commitment to modernize the kit of the Canadian Forces has become such an important factor in all of this.
The procurement run rate in our department has probably gone from about $1.5 billion a year, seven or eight years ago, to $5.5 billion today. It's an extremely complex business. We have answers to questions, but unfortunately they're not 30-second answers.