Excuse me, if you say one more word, there will be consequences. I strongly advise you to remain quiet.
Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. We very much appreciate your attendance here today and we thank you for your indulgence.
I have one quick question that I want to squeeze in.
Under “Observations” on page 10, you mentioned that officials from National Defence have contributed to all phases of the project for 15 years, that we've had people on the senior decision-making and technical committees from day one, and we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars incenting industry in Canada to be in a position where they could bid on the worldwide contracts that will result from the F-35 production.
In terms of the practical inevitability of whether or not the F-35 would be the choice, or whether there was any chance that another plane could be chosen, how could another plane be an option at all, given that we've had people on the senior management committee and on the technical committee for almost 15 years and we've spend hundreds of millions of dollars? From a practical point of view, how realistic was it or is it that the government was ever going to pick anything other than the F-35?