Thanks, Chair.
To go back to the chart on page 9, at some point even our discussions will turn the corner and look forward, but we have to do an adequate job of looking at where we've been.
I pointed out earlier that on the costs for new equipment, the assumption was that the support costs for new equipment would be the same or less, and it ended up being three times as much. I also want to bring to your attention the third part of that chart, where it says that the “level of effort for support activities is predictable.” That was the assumption. They assumed that the level of effort for support activities would be predictable.
When we see what actually happened, we see that the level of effort for submarine maintenance was significantly more than expected, and that's putting it mildly, given that “National Defence estimated that in-depth maintenance would take less than one year per submarine, at a cost of $35 million each”. As stated, “Although the in-depth maintenance period was reduced from 6 years to 4 years for each submarine, the most recent one cost”—hang on—“$321 million.” We went from $35 million projected to $321 million.
I mean, we can all understand a near miss, but wow. Please help me understand how we got here from an assumption that basically said, “Hey, don't worry, everything will be predictable, it all looks good, and we will be able to do this.” You thought that was going to be about $35 million, and you ended up at $321 million. Help me with this, please.