Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Charlevoix for his excellent question.
I do not want go on with him over the Lincoln Continental versus the Cadillac. However, it seems to me that there is a difference between a Cadillac or a Lincoln Continental and a Lada.
I want to come back to his question, because I think it is important. We think that if the contract were awarded to EH in the Montreal region, it would mean an additional 200 or 300 jobs for Quebec. This is nothing to sniff at, because they are often high paid jobs. A level of skill is required for these jobs.
In the contracts for the army, there are always economic benefits, because there are subcontractors. I have given you the example of CRL Technologies, which would be prepared to do the emergency lighting.
There is also the matter of the maintenance. It is very important. Since the government bought 15 Cormorants in 1998, why not buy another 28. It would have the same maintenance equipment for them instead of a double system: one maintenance system for the Cormorants and one for Eurocopter. Eurocopter might say “We are going to send experts from Europe, but you have to pay for that. We are prepared to do the maintenance for a year or two, but after five years, we cannot. We are not going to send Eurocopter or a Eurocopter company to North America to look after the maintenance of your helicopters”.
It was a very intelligent question. Basically, the maintenance will cost us more.