Mr. Chair, it's difficult to say because we have not had access to all the evidence needed it to confirm when National Defence realized that it would be impossible to install that equipment on the tanks.
I'll speak a little bit in English, because some of the terminology is difficult for me in French.
As the Auditor General says, as National Defence started this process to acquire these tanks, they didn't do any research. Part of that was because there was some history with respect to the Leopard tank, and the Leopard 1 was able to utilize these implements.
So there was a process of continuing these discussions. A certain assumption was made that these pieces of equipment could be fit on to tanks. As they proceeded and got closer to a contracting process, it seems it became clearer that it was going to be more risky, more difficult to put these pieces of equipment on. And then as they got closer to actually preparing the submission for government to consider these tanks, it seemed clear to us, on the evidence, that at that point National Defence knew there was a very high risk they would not be able to put this equipment on. This happened in a very short period of time, we have to keep in mind. So what we see is a process of coming to understand what this equipment was actually capable of doing.