Thank you, Chair.
Welcome back, Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Berthelette.
Sir, if I could start with your point 11 in your final statement, you said, “ Finally, Mr. Chair, I would like to state for the record that we stand behind all of the facts presented in the chapter”, referring, obviously, to chapter 2. So let me refer to two letters: one dated February 16, 2012, to you, Mr. Berthelette, from Public Works and Government Services Canada; and a June 1, 2010, letter from Mr. Dan Ross to Mr. Tom Ring.
Let me start with the first letter, which was to Mr. Berthelette. On page 3 it talks about your report, chapter 2, and concerns the implications of the Department of Public Works signing off based on an SOR, statement of operational requirements. In the letter, Public Works are inferring, and let me quote from the paragraph:
This implication is based on a concern raised by PWGSC staff to senior management that the Department had not reviewed the Statement of Operational Requirements. However, in the absence of the final Statement of Operational Requirements, we obtained written confirmation of the two key operational requirements that ultimately distinguished the F-35 from all its competitors. This confirmation was obtained from the Assistant Deputy Minister-Materiel, DND...
—who is not identified in here, but who I'll identify as Mr. Dan Ross—
who had intimate knowledge of the Statement of Operational Requirements.
The letter then states, “The intent of this letter is to confirm DND's requirement for a fifth generation fighter...”, basically asking Public Works to go ahead and sole-source.
Am I misreading these two, sir, in the sense that Public Works is saying they didn't read the SOR, they didn't see an SOR, but Mr. Ross is the expert, and since he told them it's okay to have a sole source then they should just go ahead and say go ahead and have a sole source, or am I just absolutely wrong about that?